Map: IDP
Settlements in Mogadishu

Summary

Maryam, a 37-year-old single mother, said that the
night before her interview with Human Rights Watch, she could hear a woman
being attacked at the camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) where
she lives with her six children in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. The
episode brought back the trauma of her own experiences of sexual assault.
Maryam said that rape had become even more pervasive at the camp in Wadajir
district of the capital and the situation for women had deteriorated since
she herself was raped there in 2012. “In our camp when we saw
someone, we used to say, ‘Hi, how are you.’ Now when we see
each other we ask, ‘Were you raped today?’”

Maryam said that the first time she was raped, she was
five months pregnant and asleep in her makeshift shelter in Wadajir
district. “The four men all raped me one by one while one of them
stood guard outside. I was struggling with the last man and he stabbed me
with the bayonet on his gun. I was screaming and no one came out to
help.”

The next day, the camp “gatekeeper”
(manager) checked up on her as word spread in the camp about the assault.
He took her to the police station where she reported that one of the
rapists was wearing a police uniform. “I then started to bleed
profusely from my vagina.… They told me to go home and wash off the
blood. But before they let me go, they told me I had to wash the floor
where I was bleeding. I sat down, they gave me a brush and I cleaned the
floor.” She never returned to the police station to pursue the case.
She was afraid the assailants would come after her and “do something
worse.” Shortly after, Maryam miscarried. Three months later, she was
raped again at night in her tent by a different gang of assailants.

Sexual violence is pervasive in much of Somalia. Two decades
of civil conflict and state collapse have created a large population of
displaced persons and other people vulnerable to sexual violence. At the same
time it has destroyed the state institutions that are supposed to protect those
most at risk. Armed assailants, including members of state security forces,
operating with complete impunity, sexually assault, rape, beat, shoot, and stab
women and girls inside camps for the displaced and as they walk to market, tend
to their fields, or forage for firewood. Members of Somalia’s long
marginalized minority communities are particularly at risk.

The United Nations reported nearly 800 cases of sexual and
gender-based violence in Mogadishu alone for the first six months of 2013. The
actual number is likely much higher. Many victims will not report rape and
sexual assault because they lack confidence in the justice system, are unaware
of available health and justice services or cannot access them, and fear
reprisal and stigma should they report rape. According to the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about one-third of victims of sexual violence
in Somalia are children.

After two decades of state collapse and armed conflict,
Somali medical services and the justice system, including police and the
courts, are profoundly ill-equipped to support and assist victims of sexual
violence. As a result, women and young girls face what the UN’s
independent expert on human rights in Somalia refers to as “double
victimization”— first the rape or sexual assault itself, then
failure of the authorities to provide effective justice or medical and social
support.

The Federal Government of Somalia, which was inaugurated in
August 2012, but which is highly dependent on international assistance and on
the military support of an African Union peacekeeping mission, AMISOM, and only
controls a small part of the country in around the capital Mogadishu, has
acknowledged the extent of the problem of sexual violence. In May 2013, the
government signed a joint communiqué with the UN’s special
representative on sexual violence in conflict pledging to address the issue
“in a comprehensive manner and as a matter of priority.” However,
it has yet to prove itself able and willing to take serious measures to prevent
security force personnel and others from committing sexual violence or to hold
perpetrators accountable.

In this report, Human Rights Watch documents women’s
experiences of sexual violence since the 2012 inauguration of the new Federal
Government of Somalia. The report covers women’s experiences in Mogadishu
and the surrounding Benadir district, areas where the government has some
control and where the government and international agencies are investing
significant resources in improving security and rebuilding government
institutions, including the judiciary and health services.

While President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud came to power
promising to prioritize security and justice, in reality little has been done
to address the problem of rape and sexual assault of women and girls,
particularly among the vulnerable displaced communities.

The report provides a five-point roadmap intended to assist
the government, donor countries, and other entities to put in place a
comprehensive national strategy to reduce sexual violence, provide survivors
with immediate and urgent assistance, and develop a long-term approach to end
these abuses.

Physical prevention. First, Somali authorities and
security forces should take all necessary measures to protect women’s
security, particularly at IDP camps throughout Mogadishu and surrounding areas
where they face a significant risk of rape. The government should ensure that
it deploys a sufficient number of competent, trained police, including female
officers, to provide security for these displaced communities. It should issue
clear public orders to the military and police that the government will enforce
a “zero tolerance” policy with regard to sexual violence. The
government should also support adequate resources for independent shelters and
safe spaces for women and girls at risk of violence.

Emergency health services. Second, authorities should
adopt measures to provide comprehensive and integrated services, including an
emergency health response service, to survivors of sexual and gender-based
violence, including those in IDP camps. The government should ensure that
health and social services provide adequate physical, psychological, social,
economic, and medical support to women and girls recovering from violence.
Healthcare and social service providers should receive specialized training to
provide care, treatment, and support to adult and child survivors of sexual
violence.

Access to justice. Third, the authorities should
ensure that survivors of sexual violence have meaningful redress by creating a
justice system that meets international standards. Justice sector reform will
need to effectively address and respond to violence against women and take into
consideration the barriers that women and girls face in accessing justice,
including stigma, victimization, cost, and geographical inaccessibility. Police
should be given appropriate training in responding to and investigating crimes
of sexual violence. As a priority, the government should take all necessary
actions to ensure that there is no retaliation against victims who allege
sexual abuse, as occurred in three high-profile cases in 2013. The authorities
should promptly and impartially investigate allegations of sexually violence
and appropriately prosecute those responsible, including members of the
security forces.

Legal and policy reform. Fourth, the government
should enact and enforce laws and regulations prohibiting all forms of violence
against women; mandating prevention, and protection; establishing care,
treatment, and support for survivors; and providing adequate punishment of
convicted perpetrators. The authorities should review existing laws and
policies, particularly in the penal code and the draft national gender policy,
to identify and eliminate gaps in the protection of women against acts of
gender-based violence.

Promotion of women’s equality. Fifth, as part
of the Federal Government of Somalia’s commitment to combatting violence
against women, it should promote gender equality through education,
women’s political, social, and economic equality, and women’s
political participation.

International human rights law obligates Somalia’s
fragile government to respect the rights to bodily integrity, liberty, and
security of the person, and to be free from discrimination, which includes
taking appropriate measures to eliminate sexual and gender-based violence. The
Federal Government of Somalia should take all feasible steps to uphold these
rights by investigating and appropriately prosecuting private actors and
government agents who infringe upon them. Ending the impunity that fosters
future abuses will require leadership from the highest levels of the
government. Failure to properly address these issues will consign more Somali
women and girls to preventable sexual violence and trauma and will do nothing
to bolster popular domestic support among Somalis for a weak government which
remains highly dependent on foreign military and financial backing.

International donors have pressed the Federal Government of
Somalia, including through the Somali Compact endorsed in September 2013, to
give priority to women’s rights. Donors should make it clear that
supporting both short and long-term measures to address sexual violence against
women is crucial for Somalia’s development.

When Human Rights Watch asked one survivor why she did
not report her being raped, she shrugged and explained the futility:
“Rape is a frequent occurrence in Somalia. Here, rape is normal.”

Key Recommendations

The Federal Government of Somalia, with the assistance of
international donors, should:

Physical Prevention

Support joint patrols of police officers and
community representatives in internally displaced person camps to deter sexual
violence, and ensure that women survivors are linked to support services;

Ensure that adequate services are available
to residents of IDP camps to reduce the need for women and girls to engage in
high-risk activities such as collecting firewood in remote areas;

Emergency Health Services

Ensure that health and social services
provide adequate physical, psychological, social, economic, and medical support
to women and girls who are victims of sexual violence;

Develop confidential referral systems and
health posts in high-risk areas, such as large or isolated IDP camps, that can
facilitate access to emergency treatment for women who are victims of sexual
violence;

Access to Justice

Investigate and appropriately discipline and
prosecute sexual violence committed by members of the state security forces;

Provide appropriate training for all police
and prosecutors in the handling of cases of sexual and gender-based violence;

Ensure that sufficient numbers of competent,
trained police, including female officers, are deployed in IDP camps to provide
adequate protection for women and girls;

Legal and Policy Reform

Enact and enforce laws and regulations that
prohibit all forms of violence against women and encompass prevention,
protection, care, treatment, support, and remedies for survivors, as well as
adequate punishment of convicted perpetrators;

Review existing provisions, particularly in
the penal code and in the draft national gender policy, to eliminate gaps in
the protection of women against acts of gender-based violence;

Promotion of Women’s Equality

Support programs to help female survivors
rebuild their lives by assisting them in seeking housing, jobs, vocational
training, or school enrollment; and

Ratify core human rights conventions,
including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Methodology

The report is based on fact-finding missions to Nairobi, Kenya in June 2013 and
to Mogadishu, Somalia in August 2013 to examine recent sexual violence against
women and girls in Mogadishu. Security and concerns for the safety of
interviewees precluded research in other parts of Somalia.

In Mogadishu, Human Rights Watch interviewed 27 survivors of
rape, some of whom had suffered abuse on more than one occasion, all between
August 2012 and August 2013, the period since the new Somali Federal Government
took over from the Transitional Federal Government. Human Rights Watch
interviewed 6 additional women who witnessed abuse or provided services to the
survivors. None of those interviewed were under the age of 18.

In Nairobi, Human Rights Watch also met with 12
representatives from international aid agencies and other relevant
organizations working in Somalia. In December 2013 and January 2014, Human
Rights Watch sent detailed letters with questions and our findings and
recommendations to Somalia’s President's Office and requested the
government's response (see annexes 2 and 3).

Human Rights Watch worked with local contacts who helped
identify women willing to be interviewed for this report. The women came from
five different districts across the capital, primarily in central Mogadishu,
and in and around Afgoye. The majority of women interviewed lived in makeshift
shelters in camps for internally displaced persons in and around Mogadishu. Others
lived in villages with more solid houses. Importantly, and contrary to the
experience of many rape survivors in Somalia, all victims interviewed for this
report had already received some basic assistance from service providers.

The names of interviewees have been withheld and replaced by
pseudonyms for security reasons. The exact locations and camp names where women
lived and where the abuse occurred are not always included in this report due
to safety concerns and to protect the identity of the women, at their request.

The individual women interviewed for this report were fully
informed about the nature and purpose of our research and how we would use the
information they provided. Human Rights Watch obtained oral consent for each of
the interviews. No incentives were provided to individuals in exchange for
their interviews. All the interviews were conducted in person, in private, and
in Somali with a female interpreter. Care was taken to ensure that interviews
about past traumatic events did not further traumatize interviewees and, where
appropriate, Human Rights Watch facilitated referrals to a local organization
providing counseling and other services.

The majority of international representatives interviewed by
Human Rights Watch also requested that their names and organizations be
withheld.

Sexual Violence Figures

On August 16, 2013, the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that during the first half of the year,
there were about 800 cases of sexual and gender-based violence reported in
Mogadishu alone.[1]
In Mogadishu and surrounding areas between January and November 2012, UN
partners and service providers registered over 1,700 cases of rape.[2] According
to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about one-third of victims of
sexual violence in Somalia are children. In 2012, UNICEF and its partners
assisted 2,200 victims of sexual violence in the country.[3] With all of these
figures, the actual number is likely much higher, as many victims of sexual
violence never report their experiences to the authorities for various
reasons, including fear of reprisals from authorities or perpetrators. Women
and girls are also wary of the ostracism and social stigma associated with
rape and they have little confidence that the authorities will undertake an
adequate investigation into their cases.

1. Improve Prevention Strategies

The majority of the victims of sexual violence documented by
local and international NGOs in and around Mogadishu are women and girls living
in IDP camps. Many reported incidents that took place at night while the
victims slept in their shelters and lacked any physical protection or security.
In some cases, victims have been repeatedly raped and sometimes gang-raped over
their time in the camps.[4]
Others have been attacked when they leave the camps to gather supplies or work.
Human Rights Watch research published in 2013 found that armed men in uniform,
including government forces and government-allied militia, have been
responsible for a significant number of sexual assaults of internally displaced
women and girls since July 2011.[5]
These have included some government personnel who were posted in IDP camps to
provide security.

The Federal Government of Somalia should take immediate
steps to reduce and prevent sexual violence by minimizing risk factors that
exacerbate women’s vulnerability, particularly for internally displaced
women and girls.

Short-term protection measures:

Organize joint patrols of competent, trained
police officers and community representatives in IDP camps, especially at
night, to deter violence and identify women who have been victimized so that
they can be provided with services;

Provide services to reduce the need for
women and girls in IDP camps to undertake high-risk activities such as
collecting firewood in remote areas and fetching water; provide safe access to
water points.

Medium-term measures:

Improve physical protection by building
off-site shelters and safe spaces within camps for women and girls at risk of
violence and who have experienced violence. Provide adequate lighting
throughout the camps, latrines with locks, and secure camp perimeters;

Employ community safety coordinators in IDP
camps to help women and girls organize to travel in groups to collect supplies
or when they need to leave camp to work or attend school;

Ensure that sufficient numbers of competent,
trained police, including female officers, are deployed to protect women and
girls in IDP camps and in the community at large.

Long-term measures:

Launch public information and education campaigns
on violence against women to change existing attitudes of men and women about
their roles and status;

Launch public messaging and awareness
campaigns to inform survivors of sexual violence of available services and
reporting processes.

In 2011, Farxiyo moved to Mogadishu from Lower Shabelle
with her family after all their livestock died from drought. Her abusive
husband divorced her and left her solely financially responsible for their
seven children, two of whom stay with Farxiyo’s mother.[6] In July 2013, Farxiyo
was forcibly evicted from her camp by unknown men who destroyed her shelter
along with others. “I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t
know what to do. I sat in front of the camp and someone gave me some
shillings and helped me move out.”[7]

Soon after moving to another camp in Sarkuusta (between
Mogadishu and Afgoye) with her five children, she was raped while asleep in
her tent. Farxiyo said she feels completely unprotected at the camp and knows
other women who have been raped. The day before Human Rights Watch
interviewed her, she said she heard two men attacking her elderly neighbor. The
next morning she went to console the woman who told her what happened.[8]

Farixyo told Human Rights Watch:

The government should give
us proper shelter with a fence and an entrance. Police should secure the camp
and manage who comes and goes. The worst thing is that the rapes push us into
poverty because afterward we cannot do the same work or carry heavy loads. We
need money for our kids to live. The government should do something or kids
will die of hunger.[9]

Insecurity inside IDP camps

The insecurity of IDP camps, particularly at night, poses
among the gravest risks of sexual violence for women and girls in Mogadishu. Many
of the women interviewed by Human Rights Watch were living in shelters made of
cloth and plastic sheeting, which are easily accessible to an intruder. Others
had been living in temporary shelters that are structurally flimsy and
constructed from wood, cardboard and cloth, often without doors. In two
incidents reported to Human Rights Watch, displaced women who lived in more
solidly built houses were attacked outside of their homes while carrying out
daily chores. Some of the IDP settlements are physically isolated, situated on
the outskirts of the city. While others were in the center of Mogadishu and
sometimes on main thoroughfares, they had no form of protection.

Many women and girls in IDP camps must walk significant
distances from the camp to collect fuel, access latrines, or reach other
services. Insufficient lighting in and outside of the tents makes it easy for
intruders to move about unnoticed. Many camps have no security and those that
do often depend upon government-affiliated militia, who have regularly been
implicated in threats and assaults against displaced people, including
children.

In early 2013, 34-year-old Shamso was raped by three men who
broke into her home in a camp in the Dharkenley district under cover of night. She
attempted to resist the first attacker, which led the others to stab her in her
lower back before raping her. Throughout the attack, her three young children
were in the same room.[10]
She told Human Rights Watch:

One of the men came in and raped me while the second and
third men stood outside [the hut] and guarded it. They took turns. The men
didn’t hurry because mostly women live in the camp and are no threat to
them. During the attack, one of them told me, “You can tell anyone that
we did this, we’re not scared.”[11]

Shamso’s camp, which houses about 40 tents, has one
security guard who leaves for his home at night, leaving the camp completely
accessible to intruders. She said that rape was very common there. After the
attack, she was afraid to stay at that camp.[12]

Ayan, 20, was sleeping with her 3-year-old in a makeshift
tent in a camp in Hodan district in July 2013, when three men entered at
midnight, one carrying a knife.[13]
As the first man raped her, she screamed as loudly as she could, startling the
men, who then fled. “They didn’t say anything but I knew what they
wanted,” she told Human Rights Watch. She said there are more than 100
tents at the camp where she lives, but no security, so “people come and
go as they please.” Ayan continues to live at the camp where she was
raped because she has nowhere else to go, due to lack of resources. Many of the
women interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were reluctant to move since
they would lose their support networks and livelihood opportunities.[14]

In a few cases, women told Human Rights Watch that their
camps had pooled together resources to hire security guards to work at night
and this was reducing the number of sexual assaults. One woman, who was
gang-raped by three men inside her temporary shelter in late 2012 soon after
she moved to the IDP camp in an area of Mogadishu known as X-control, said that
rape has been less frequent at the camp since the security guards were hired.[15] Residents
pay $1 a month for it. Such initiatives indicate that rape at camps is not
inevitable and that a strong law enforcement or security presence could be an
effective deterrent to sexual violence.

Violence outside camps

Displaced women and girls are also vulnerable when they
leave their camps to gather supplies or go to work. Many of the women
interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were living alone because they were
divorced, their husbands or fathers had been killed during the conflict, or
their husbands or fathers had stayed behind to guard their homes and land after
they were displaced by drought. In female-headed households, many women have no
alternative but to make the risky journey and travel long distances to gather
food, firewood, materials to construct shelters, and to work.[16]

In May 2013, unknown men evicted Safiyo, a 25-year-old
divorced woman, from her apartment in Hodan district after demanding $5 per
month in rent.[17]
Safiyo and her three children moved to an IDP camp in the same district.
Several days later, while collecting firewood, two men in military uniforms
approached her from behind and pushed her down, crushing her face and smashing
a tooth on her lower jaw. The men raped her, telling her that if she said,
“a single word, we will slaughter you.”[18]

“One was holding my head down, the other held a knife
to my throat,” she told Human Rights Watch. “When they were using
me, I was face down on the ground. The first man finished and they swapped
positions. The second one raped me and said, ‘Don’t move or
we’ll kill you.’” After the assault, Safiyo spent four months
at Benadir hospital recovering from her injuries, and is now under her mother’s
care.

In June 2013, Shamso, who had been raped several months
earlier in her shelter, walked for over two hours from her IDP camp to collect
wood to reinforce the structure of her shelter in Dharkenley district. [19] She was
four months pregnant at the time. A man, who had covered his face except for
his eyes, threw her to the ground and threatened her with his machete. He then
raped her so violently that she said it caused her to later miscarry. After he
was finished, Shamso ran away leaving everything behind, including her wood and
her shoes.[20]

Women living in IDP camps in Mogadishu as well as in Afgoye
described how they had to travel up to 30 kilometers into the bush along the
Afgoye corridor to look for wood. These long, unpatrolled distances between IDP
camps and fuel, firewood, water and other necessary supplies present numerous
opportunities for perpetrators to commit sexual violence with impunity.

Hazards of Moving

Hawo’s experience of rape exemplifies the hazards
of moving. In December 2012, Hawo, 27, left her husband and the town of
Jowhar, 90 kilometers north of Mogadishu, to move to the capital with her six
children to find work. While her bus was on the outskirts of town, assailants
with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols stopped the bus and said they
were going to “take all the women off the bus and nobody should try to
do anything about it.” The women who resisted were beaten into
submission. “They didn’t steal anything from us because none of
us had anything of value. They took us to a bushy area and raped us. We could
all see each other.” After the assailants left, the women returned to
the bus and continued the journey to Mogadishu in silence.[21]

2. Improve Access to Emergency Health Services

Sexual and gender-based violence has acute
and long-term physical, psychological, and social consequences.[22] Survivors
often experience severe psychological trauma: depression, terror, guilt, shame,
loss of self-esteem. Survivors also face rejection by spouses and families.
Immediate medical and psychological assistance for survivors is a
crucial step to their recovery and, in some instances, to their survival. However, because of the ruinous state of the health system in
Somalia following more than two decades of conflict, few of the rape survivors
interviewed by Human Rights Watch had been able to access appropriate post-rape
care services, including post-exposure prophylaxis for the prevention of HIV
transmission and emergency contraception. Adequate services should be
accessible to all women and girls, including those from marginalized
communities or minority clans, who are sometimes cut off from information about
available services.[23]

Somali authorities, with the assistance of the international
community, should adopt measures to provide comprehensive and integrated
services, including emergency response, to survivors of sexual and gender-based
violence.

Medium-term measures:

Launch public messaging campaigns through
billboards and radio that increase awareness of the major problem of sexual
violence in Somalia, which would help reduce stigma;

Long-term measures:

Ensure that health and social services
provide adequate physical, psychological, social, economic, and medical support
to women and girls recovering from violence; develop confidential referral systems
and health posts in high-risk areas, such as large or isolated IDP camps, which
can facilitate referrals and access to emergency treatment for women who are
victims of sexual violence.

Ensure that all hospitals in Mogadishu and
surrounding areas are equipped with medical supplies to treat post-rape care in
accordance with World Health Organization (WHO) standards and ensure that all
facilities have procedures in place to respond to sexual violence, including
Postexposure Prophylaxis (PEP) kits. All services should have trained staff to
deliver confidential and comprehensive medical treatment and psychosocial
support. If and when services are not available then facilities should have
adequate referral systems to ensure survivors can access confidential care;

Provide specialized training for healthcare
and social service providers to ensure care, treatment, and support to women
and child survivors. Training should include both individual and community
approaches where needed;

Ensure that public information is available
about the legal and physical consequences of sexual violence and how victims
can access free functioning services.

Inadequate Infrastructure and Services

In most of Somalia, especially in south and
central Somalia, the basic health infrastructure is in ruins. After the fall of
Somalia’s last central government in 1991, its already fragile healthcare
system collapsed. Somalis came to rely on international donors and humanitarian
agencies for health services. With little to no formal government structures
for two decades, health services including psychological and psychiatric care
were mostly provided on a fee-paying basis and what public services were
available were very basic and rarely 100 percent free.[24] To date
the system of fee-paying health care still exists. According to a member of an
international NGO providing health care in Somalia, “besides some clinics
and NGOs, which are supported by outside organizations, most patients are
expected to pay for at least some, if not all of their treatment, and always
for the medication.”[25]
Most state and private facilities do not provide comprehensive services for
survivors of sexual violence.

One of the most important and longstanding
providers of free medical services was the international medical NGO Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF). Survivors and local service providers identified the MSF
facilities as the best known of the few completely free clinics where local
organizations could refer victims of sexual violence, knowing that free
emergency medical care would be available.[26]
MSF closed down operations in 2013.[27]
Its withdrawal was described by one local services provider working with
survivors of sexual violence as leaving a “massive gap” in the help
that is available in Mogadishu.[28]
The departure by MSF due to unacceptably high security risks highlighted the
challenges that service providers face when operating in Somalia and the
crucial need to protect them.

According to the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), services for sexual violence are available
in all districts in and around Mogadishu. However, victims told Human Rights
Watch that they were not aware of such services or they said access to services
remained a challenge.

Human Rights Watch did not carry out a
comprehensive assessment of services but interviewed 11 humanitarian agencies
and NGOs supporting or directly providing services to survivors of sexual
violence. They report that they are providing free services to survivors of
sexual and gender-based violence in all 16 districts in and around Mogadishu.
These services reportedly include health services, legal advice, and
representation, as well as psycho-social support. According to a 2013
report of the UN secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, the UN and
its partners have been able to establish referral pathways for basic
psycho-social support and health services in some areas. However, coverage and
quality standards are low and access to health services in rural areas in Somalia
remains extremely limited.[29]

Other Barriers to Women’s Access to Treatment

Lack of adequate infrastructure and
services are not the only barriers to necessary treatment for victims of sexual
violence.

The survivors of sexual violence
interviewed by Human Rights Watch all said they were from poor and
disenfranchised IDP communities, many from drought-affected areas, often
female-headed households and living without their usual community support
systems.[30]
Most IDPs in Mogadishu are from minority clans who have little awareness of the
need for and availability of emergency health services.

Another barrier is the cultural taboo of
rape. Staff from several of the organizations dealing with sexual and
gender-based violence told Human Rights Watch that women were inhibited from
accessing services by the stigma that surrounds women who report rape.[31]
In addition, women who do want to access health care or other services also
have to overcome many practical barriers such as transport to and from services
and child care.

Qamar, a 28-year-old woman from Hodan who
was brutally raped in her shelter in front of her two children as she slept in
an IDP camp in August 2013, told Human Rights Watch:

The day after the rape I took a minibus to
the hospitals, the neighbors chipped in and paid for the transport. I went to
the women and children clinic on the Burundian [AMISOM] base and got injections
and pills.[32]
I told them that my husband had sexually abused me and beat me, rather than say
I was raped. I didn’t know there was a treatment for rape… I went
because I had been anally raped and there were tears. …I didn’t say
anything because rape is not something you talk about. [33]

Raxmo, 42, described to Human Rights Watch
how her 17-year-old daughter, who had been raped at the Sarkuusta Camp, died as
they were trying to take her to a hospital several kilometers away. With no
mobile emergency medical services available and with no money to hire a vehicle
or even use public transport, family and neighbors were forced to carry her in
a wheelbarrow.[34]

Lack of access to information about the
physical location of accessible free services is a further barrier. Four women
told Human Rights Watch that their access to immediate care had been hampered
by their lack of awareness about the few free or accessible services that do
exist. Safiyo, 32, said that after she was raped by two
men while collecting firewood:

People grazing cows found me and put me on
their donkey and took me to my house. I could not afford medicine or health care.
It was only when my neighbor came to my house and asked me what was wrong. She
said there was a center that gives free medicine – she took me.[35]

One local NGO staff member told Human
Rights Watch that the use of community workers and women in the community who
could identify victims and facilitate their transport to services had proved to
be an effective strategy to significantly increase the numbers of survivors
accessing assistance.[36]
Most women who had been able to access services were able to do so through
outreach programs and community focal points that made referrals to local
services.

Human Rights
Watch interviewed three women who miscarried after they were raped; others
described contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from their
attackers. Many of the women in IDP camps in Mogadishu have limited
understanding of their reproductive health system and health risks. In several
cases, women told Human Rights Watch that they had been to hospital after the
rape, but did not disclose the rape to healthcare workers because they were not
aware of the health risks associated with rape, or that treatments were
available to reduce their exposure to HIV and to treat and prevent STIs.

Twenty-eight-year-old Asha, who was raped by two men while working as a porter in Bakara
market, told Human Rights Watch:

I was raped, I fled and took a minibus
back home. … I went to a [local] hospital first and then after a week I
got more ill and went to the hospital on the Burundi base (AMISOM), but
didn’t get treatment… I went to NGO service provider at the end of
Ramadan a month later so it was too late for [preventative medical treatment].
I had gone to the other hospitals and been treated for a chest infection. When
I went to the two hospitals I didn’t mention that I was raped because I
didn’t know anything about HIV and sexually transmitted infections.[37]

Psychologists, counselors, social workers, community workers,
and teachers should be trained to treat survivors of sexual violence, including
recognizing the indirect signs and symptoms. For instance, violence survivors
may not disclose their rape to a healthcare worker, but may be suffering from
headaches, depression, anxiety, somatic complaints, fatigue, palpitations, poor
memory, and lack of concentration.[38]

Impact of Conflict on
Women and Girls

The widespread violence, insecurity and displacement
caused by two decades of conflict in Somalia have created perilous conditions
for Somali women and girls, particularly those from Somalia’s displaced
communities. According to the UN, 1.1 million people are currently displaced
within the country, with 369,000 in Mogadishu alone, many of them women and
girls.[39]

A devastating famine between 2010 and 2012 in
south-central Somalia, caused by drought, insecurity, and fighting,
al-Shabaab’s blocking of civilian access to humanitarian assistance,
and increased “taxation” of resources and livestock, created a
new wave of displacement into the war-torn capital. Although there is no
accurate death toll, tens of thousands of people are believed to have died as
a result of the famine.[40]
Thousands more fled into neighboring countries. In November 2013, there were
more than one million Somali refugees mainly in the East and Horn of Africa.[41]

Somalia’s social system, governed in part by a
traditional clan system, leaves displaced women and girls from minority
groups and less powerful clans especially vulnerable to random violence due
to their social isolation and poor living and work opportunities. Women and
girls from such groups often have less access to education and are often
unaware of and isolated from the justice system and other government
institutions and services.[42]

3. Ensuring Access to Justice

Accountability for sexual violence in Somalia is almost
non-existent. Impunity is the norm. The reasons for this include: the
inevitable weakness of the justice system after years of armed conflict;
cultural taboos which make women reluctant to file complaints; the legitimate
fear of reprisals especially in cases where the alleged perpetrator are members
of the security forces; and the perceived lack of will and capacity on the part
of the police to record and investigate allegations.

The Federal Government of Somalia, with assistance from
international donors, should establish a judicial system capable of delivering
justice to victims of sexual abuse in accordance with international standards.

Short-term measures:

Order police to improve their relationship
with IDP communities by engaging in a greater number of patrols, holding public
meetings with the community, doing outreach to service providers to encourage
women and girls to report incidents of violence;

Adopt a “zero tolerance” policy
for any police officer implicated in sexual violence;

Adopt procedures that take into account the
lack of anonymity in camp settings to protect the confidentiality of persons
reporting sexual assault during the police investigation;

Issue clear and public orders to all members
of the armed forces and police that rape and commit other acts of sexual
violence will be promptly investigated and prosecuted;

Investigate and appropriately prosecute
alleged sexual violence committed by members of the armed forces and police,
and promptly dismiss those found to be responsible from security forces.

Medium-term measures:

Launch public information and education
campaigns on reporting violence against women to police, military courts, and
other authorities;

Train all law enforcement, including police
and prosecutors, to promptly and thoroughly investigate cases of sexual and
gender-based violence;

Recruit more female police officers and
other female personnel to act as focal points at police stations;

Ensure military personnel and the police are
vetted to exclude perpetrators of human rights abuses, including sexual violence.

Long-term Measures:

Ensure that all existing and new recruits
receive appropriate human rights trainings, and that they include training
about forms of sexual violence and how to respond to reports of sexual
violence;

Establish court procedures to protect the
privacy of victims, such as excluding media and the public from hearings for
sexual violence cases;

Support the training of female lawyers,
prosecutors, and judges, and offer gender-sensitive training to the judiciary;

Publicly release data on the prosecution and
conviction of cases of sexual and gender-based violence;

Transfer all criminal cases involving
alleged civilian perpetrators as soon as feasible from the military court
system to the civilian justice system;

Develop adequate protection measures,
including protection programs and psychological support, before, during, and
after the trial for all victims and witnesses whose physical safety and
psychological well-being are at risk. This should include, but not be limited
to, relocation measures.

Xawo, 34, was a cleaner in her neighborhood.[43]
In June 2012, four men whose rooms she cleaned took her to a back room,
tied her hands, slammed her against a cement wall, broke her fingers, and
gang raped her. She told Human Rights Watch that she never reported the
incident because the perpetrators knew where she lived and she was
fearful of reprisal. After she became pregnant from the rape, people
close to her told her to “throw the baby away and cover up [her]
story,” she said.

When a woman faces such difficulties, she knows she
can’t go to the government or to anyone. Women are being abused
from every angle – from their family all the way to their
government. Even within your family they’re telling you not to keep
the child or to cover it up and not bring shame. Women are always told to
be quiet, when you accuse the military or police of rape, your family
says, “Even we will beat you if you bring this up.” We need
to acknowledge this is happening and give women the opportunity to speak
out not just publicly but within the family. It’s a struggle at all
levels.

Failure of the Justice
System

In most of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, women
who had been raped said they did not file complaints because they did not
believe the police would be able or willing to take effective action, even when
the alleged perpetrators were not thought to be members of the security forces.
Women were also deterred from going to the authorities by family members and
the heads of IDP camps known as “gatekeepers.”

Lack of Investigations

Rape survivors say the high frequency of sexual
violence in Mogadishu’s IDP camps has “normalized” rape, and
that an underfunded and overstretched police force is cavalier about their
plight. When Human Rights Watch asked one survivor why she did not report her
being raped, she shrugged and explained the futility: “Rape is a frequent
occurrence in Somalia. Here, rape is normal.”

Somali police, rather than proactively investigate criminal
complaints, often demand that victims of any crime do the legwork in the
investigation, from locating witnesses to establishing who the suspects are.
This practice is especially problematic in cases of rape. Women described the
challenges that they face: many were raped at night in an unfamiliar area. They
could not identify the perpetrators or potential witnesses. Even if they were
able to clearly see the uniforms of perpetrators, the difficulties of
differentiating whether the uniforms belonged to military or to a militia group
made identification daunting. Thus where the police were reluctant to
investigate a case without information on the identity of the perpetrator, rape
survivors considered reporting the abuse to be futile.

Samiira told Human Rights Watch that after she was raped by
men in uniform while collecting firewood in Afgoye in May 2013, she did not
file a police report because she did not know who the rapists were. “If
someone goes to the police they do not respond,” she said.
“They’ll ask me if I know who [the perpetrators] are. I know their
faces and I could recognize them and I thought about reporting it but I
don’t know where they live.”[44]

Even in cases where the alleged perpetrator is known, and
police have medical evidence and a witness, cases of sexual violence rarely
make it to court. From our interviews with more than 27 victims, Human Rights
Watch was able to document just a single case in which an alleged perpetrator
was arrested. He was later released without charge despite incriminating
medical evidence and victim testimony.

In March 2013, when Leyla was outside working, her husband
raped her 3-year-old daughter (his step-daughter).[45] After the rape, Leyla
said that he burned the girl’s thighs and vaginal area in what may have
been an attempt to destroy any incriminating evidence. A medical report taken
when the girl was hospitalized stated that she had been raped. The police
arrested and detained the husband, but despite the evidence against him he was
not criminally charged and was released after four months. Leyla has since
lived in fear that he will find and harm her and her daughter.[46]

Access to the State Justice System

Access to the justice system is extremely limited,
especially in rural areas.[47]
Some survivors of sexual violence, especially women who are new to Mogadishu or
an IDP camp, lack knowledge about how to report sexual violence and where to go
to report it. Jamilah, a 25-year-old woman who was raped in her tent at
Sarkuusta IDP camp, told Human Rights Watch that she never reported her rape
because she had a “lack of information … that is the biggest barrier
for reporting. We are so disempowered.”[48]

Displaced women may also be reluctant to report sexual
violence because they are too poor to take time off from work and forgo the
daily wages that they depend on to feed their families. Filsan told Human
Rights Watch that she did not go to the police after being raped because she
could not afford to stop working at a food shack at the bus station as she is
the sole provider for her invalid husband and seven children.[49]

According to the UN special expert on Somalia, women and
young girls “face double victimization because, after being violated,
they often have no effective justice and support system to turn to.”[50] Only a
small fraction of crimes of sexual violence are prosecuted through the legal
system and even fewer result in conviction.

According to UN figures, between January and November 2012,
the military court reportedly opened 13 cases against members of the Somali
security forces accused of rape.[51]
The court found one defendant guilty and acquitted three. Nine other cases were
pending.[52]
Human Rights Watch research into the military court found some due process
concerns in both cases concerning soldier defendants and those concerning
civilian defendants, including lengthy pre-trial detentions and restrictions on
defendants’ capacity to exercise the right to a defense and appeal. The
military court has also sentenced defendants, including civilians, to death in
trials.[53]

Prosecutions through the civilian criminal justice system
may be even more limited. The UN reported that while official police and court
data are not available, data informally acquired from the Somali police
indicate that about 100 rape cases were opened in Mogadishu between January and
November 2012.[54]
It is unknown how many cases resulted in convictions as authorities do not
publicly release figures on the prosecution and conviction of crimes. The
minimal efforts to improve access to justice in Mogadishu have met with
setbacks because of insecurity.[55]
The UN told Human Rights Watch that a pilot mobile court project rapidly
stalled because the judges feared for their safety.[56]

On rare occasions courts in Mogadishu have handed down
convictions for rape. According to a local service provider who provides legal
and other assistance to vulnerable women, in July 2013 a court convicted a
neighbor for raping a 15-year-old girl with disabilities in an IDP camp in
Hodan and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment.[57]

The service provider described the criminal justice system
in Somalia as broken:

There is no legal framework policy yet that deals with
victims of sexual violence. Rape is not considered as a big deal here in
Somalia and it is only civil society organizations that shout about sexual and
gender-based violence [SGBV]. Corruption, dishonesty, bribery and fraud have
widely affected all pillars of the justice system in Somalia. …. The
current government is still struggling with the security and other major
political diplomatic issues let alone thinking about SGBV, but it is up to
[civil society organizations] as well the international community to help these
silenced victims and make their voices heard.[58]

Failure of Traditional Justice Mechanisms

Weak state judicial institutions have meant that many
survivors of sexual violence depend on traditional mechanisms for justice,
including customary law, xeer, and Sharia (Islamic law).[59] But both justice
mechanisms are male-dominated and not supportive of survivors’ rights.[60]

Under Somali traditional or customary legal mechanisms,
sexual and gender-based violence often goes unpunished, particularly as
traditional Somali society does not openly discuss these issues.[61] The elders
responsible for taking decisions within rural communities are always men (in
Somali Odayaasha Dhaqanka) and women are not permitted to participate in
decisions taken by this group. Rather, in cases concerning women, male
relatives represent the women. Compensation for loss of life is typically 100
camels for a man and 50 for a woman.[62]
In rape cases, the elders have sometimes compelled victims to marry the
perpetrator.[63]

Service providers told Human Rights Watch that traditional
justice mechanisms that are ill-equipped to deal with sexual violence have had
a negative impact on victims and stripped them of their legal rights.[64]

“When a women is raped, usually the clan elders of the
two families come together and agree that the perpetrator’s family pay a
small amount of money [anything from $5 to $100] to the victim,” a member
of a Somali service provider said. “In most instances, if it is a case of
rape, the rapist’s sentence is to marry his victim or compensate male
family members of the victim.”[65]

Perpetrators in Uniform

Human Rights Watch
research published in 2013 found that armed men in uniform, including
government forces, have been responsible for a significant number of sexual
assaults of internally displaced women and girls in Mogadishu since July 2011.[66]
These have included some government personnel who were posted in IDP camps to
provide security.

While in many cases the alleged perpetrators in Mogadishu of
rape are members of the security forces, it can be difficult to prove this and
to identify those responsible because of the large number of armed groups
active in the capital and the ready availability of military and military-type
uniforms. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that different police uniforms
are provided by various donor countries. And state security forces dress in a
mix of uniforms, making it difficult to distinguish them from members of
non-state armed groups.[67]
In addition, underpaid members of the security forces often operate as private
bodyguards and security providers, and wear their military uniforms while off
duty.

While not all perpetrators wearing uniforms belong to state
security forces, the frequent reports of attacks by uniformed men and the total
impunity for those who commit crimes has led to a deep and general mistrust of
the security forces, including police, among victims of sexual violence. Many
of the women interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that there was no point in
reporting their cases to the police because the police would not adequately
investigate fellow security force members. The women said that those
perpetrators wearing uniforms acted with apparently little regard for being brought
to justice: they rarely felt the need to conceal their uniform.

Raxmo previously operated a tea stall that served Somali
soldiers near the Sarkuusta IDP camp between Mogadishu and Afgoye.[68] One night
in April 2013, three assailants entered her tent. She woke up to the screams of
her 17-year-old daughter, who was being raped. She recognized the three
soldiers as customers from her tea stall: “I tried to pull [one of the
soldiers] off her but, when I tried, he used a large knife and stabbed me under
my left armpit. The men shot their AK-47s into the tent as they were fleeing,
killing my daughter.”

Raxmo was herself raped
a month later after she had moved her family to another IDP camp and opened up
a small grocery kiosk. On that day, she was returning to her kiosk from the
market and had hired a porter to wheelbarrow food that she planned to sell.
Another woman carrying food on her head was walking with them. They encountered
two men wearing army uniforms and carrying guns in the middle of the road who
ordered the porter to leave right away. The men took the women to a derelict
outpost where they searched them and stole Raxmo’s cellphone. Then they
took her inside the building to a man who acted as their superior officer and
who gave orders. The man raped her after beating and punching her. The other
woman who was accompanying her was raped as well.[69]

Asha, 28, was raped by
men in uniform while working as a porter at Bakara market, the largest market
in Mogadishu, to support her four children.[70] In July 2013, a man hired her
to carry groceries to an unfamiliar area in Mogadishu’s outskirts. When
she arrived at a derelict house, she became suspicious, but it was too late.
Two men wearing military uniforms took her inside. After ordering her to strip,
they raped her. One of the rapists slapped her and said, “If you say a
word or scream, I will shoot you.” Asha begged him not to hurt her. After
she was raped, Asha fled and took a minibus home to her IDP camp in the area
called X-control. Asha still works as a porter but no longer accepts employment
from men.

Fear of Reprisal from Security Forces

Women told Human Rights Watch that they were especially
reluctant to report the crime to authorities for fear of reprisals or of being
accused of a crime, particularly in cases where the perpetrator was a member of
the security forces. For instance, three months after Maryam was first raped in
2012, seven men knocked on her door one night and ordered her to let them in.[71] They
called her by name. After she refused, they kicked in the door. The men were
all wearing greenish military uniforms that looked new. She said that because
she resisted the assault, the men viciously beat her with an AK-47 and stabbed
her near her left eye. The men gang-raped her. The attack left Maryam with
blurred vision while her eye was swollen for three months.[72]

One of the assailants was familiar to Maryam: she knew his
name and the location of his house. When she asked him during the attack,
“Why are you doing this to me?’” all he said was “Get
ready.” “I had been to his house earlier that day to wash
clothes,” Maryam said. “When I was at the house, he said, ‘I
like the way you wash, I like the way you iron, I’m watching you.’
I thought he was joking. But he was the last one who raped me.”[73]

Maryam never reported the second rape because she was afraid
of being arrested for filing a report against men in uniform:

I see him on the street now but nothing happens to him. He
moves freely in the city with complete freedom. … I get flashbacks [of
the attack] especially because I keep seeing him around. I can’t do
anything because he has a gun and I don’t have a gun. It hurts me when I
see him in the street every day and I can’t do anything because I don’t
have a gun.[74]

Raxmo, who was injured after trying to stop the rape of her
teenaged daughter in an IDP camp, was raped herself a few months later
returning from market.[75]
After Raxmo was raped, the soldiers threatened her and told her to remain
silent.

She told Human Rights Watch:

As soon as he finished, one of the men said, “We know
who you are, you’re a businesswomen. We will find where you hide and
finish you if you say government soldiers did this to you.” I told people
about what happened but not the police. If you can’t identify who the
perpetrator is, what’s the point of reporting the crime? No one will do
anything.

The family reported neither crime to police because they did
not believe police would do anything against other men in uniform. “What
will they do?” Raxmo said. “They are responsible for these abuses.
All we could do is leave our camp because we were afraid the men would come
back to harm us.”[76]

For Sacdiya, who was raped in June by two men as she
collected firewood, reporting the incident to police was out of the question
after hearing about the experiences of a neighbor who had reported her
experience of sexual violence and was then accused of lying and arrested.[77] She said:
“If you go to police they will ask, ‘Can you show us who did
it?’ And when you say ‘No, I can’t,’ they’ll
respond, ‘It’s you that’s guilty.’ … We are
farmers, we are poor, we don’t have guns, our voice is not considered.
… Guns have influence, we do not.”[78]

Women are further dissuaded from reporting sexual violence
for fear of being sexually assaulted again as reprisal. In March 2013, Nafiso,
who lives with her children and elderly parents, said a man in a green military
uniform with combat boots carrying a machete broke into her house in her
village near Afgoye.[79]
He kicked her in the ribs and covered her mouth with his hand as he raped her.
Nafiso’s neighbor’s experience with the police deterred her from
reporting the incident: “A neighbor of mine was raped by men in military
uniform. She went to report it and the same night she was raped again by men in
military uniform. I think they targeted her. Police report the crimes to their
higher-ups and we face retribution.”[80]

Similarly, when Hawo was raped, she did not tell anyone.[81] “I
was afraid to report to the police,” she said. “I was afraid of
them. The police have weapons like the men who raped me. I was worried what
they would do to me. They might do the same harm as the perpetrators. Also, if
they didn’t believe me, they would punish me.”[82]

A number of widely reported cases of security forces
intimidating victims have done nothing to dispel the fears that prevent many
victims from reporting rape to the authorities.

On January 8, 2013, a 27-year-old woman was interviewed by a freelance
journalist, Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, in the wake of growing reports of sexual
violence by security forces in the IDP camps of Mogadishu. She said that in
August 2012, men in uniform, who were possibly government soldiers, raped her
in the Burdubo IDP camp in the Tarabunka neighborhood of West Mogadishu. Police
arrested the woman on January 10 and interrogated her at the Criminal
Investigation Department. Rather than investigate the perpetrators of the
alleged rape, the police investigated the woman, the journalist, and three
other individuals, including the woman’s husband, who eventually spent
between 14 to 19 days in detention without charge.

All five were eventually charged on January 29 with a range
of crimes, including insulting the government, simulating a criminal offense, and
making a false accusation. On February 5, 2013, the woman and the journalist
were convicted of falsely accusing a government body of committing a crime that
damages state security and sentenced to one-year imprisonment. The
woman’s sentence was later overturned by an appellate court, while the
journalist’s sentence was ultimately quashed by the Supreme Court after
he had spent 66 days in detention.

In a similar case in August 2013, a resident of Mogadishu
said she was abducted by Somali army soldiers and transferred to (AMISOM)
soldiers who gang-raped her and then dumped her on the streets. A joint Somali
and AMISOM investigation committee was established to investigate the incident
and identify those responsible and the underlying causes of such abuses. The
government said that the incident was reported to have occurred on an AMISOM
base in north Mogadishu, known as Maslah camp.

Somali security personnel from the police, intelligence
services, and the military harassed and intimidated the woman and others
involved in the case, including the organization providing the woman with
medical assistance and shelter, and a journalist who initially interviewed her.
The investigation committee was to complete its findings within 60 days and
present them to a designated ministerial team. As of January 2014, the
government has not released its findings of the investigation.

In both instances, the conduct of the police and military
highlight serious violations of due process, which seem likely to deter future victims
from reporting sexual violence. The former case also reveals a disturbing
attempt to blame the complainant and the media, and to divert attention from
the very real and alarming prevalence of sexual violence in Mogadishu. These
cases also may chill efforts by the media to report on these and other human
rights abuses involving security forces and other government officials.

Despite domestic and international criticism of the
government’s handling of the cases, in November 2013 authorities arrested
another woman, a 19-year-old journalist, who alleged she had been raped, in
this case not by military personnel. Authorities also arrested two journalists
– one for interviewing the woman, the other, the head of the media outlet
that aired the interview, for allowing his station’s camera to film the
interview. The authorities have reportedly denied the jailed journalists access
to a lawyer. The police made the arrests after the alleged attackers filed a
defamation case against the woman and one of the journalists.[83]On
November 28, the authorities charged the woman and the journalists

with filing a false criminal claim. On December 9, a court
convicted the woman and the journalist of defamation, and the network owner was
convicted of “insulting a government body.” The court sentenced the
woman to six months’ house arrest and the two journalists to prison terms
of six months and a year. The men were released after agreeing to pay a fine
instead.[84]

Threats and Violence
from Al-Shabaab

Outside of areas under the control of the Federal
Government of Somalia, Somali women and girls face threats of sexual and
gender-based violence from al-Shabaab. In al-Shabaab-controlled areas,
militants have been responsible for numerous acts of violence against girls
and women, including rape, forced marriage, corporal punishment, and killing.
In 2012, Human Rights Watch reported that al-Shabaab recruited and abducted
girls to be raped, forced into marriage with fighters, or forced to cook,
clean, and perform other domestic duties at their military camps.[85] The UN special
rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, said that Somali women
and girl refugees and IDPs reported several cases of female refugees and
IDPs, ages 11 to 80, being kidnapped, raped, or forced into marriage by
al-Shabaab militias.[86]
The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa also reported that
girls as young as 12 were being forced into marriage with al-Shabaab
fighters, while also being subjected to rape and sexual abuse.[87]

Al-Shabaab has further inflicted violence against Somali
women and girls by way of hudood, or physical punishment of those they
deem to have violated Sharia, or Islamic law. For example, on August 21,
2012, al-Shabaab militants dragged a female tea seller from a bus near the
town of Baidoa and beheaded her because she had refused to stop selling tea
to members of the Transitional Federal Government.[88] The group has
strictly regulated and policed every aspect of the lives of the population
under its control, and women in particular. They have conducted public
beatings and whippings of women who were deemed to wear clothing that was not
“modest,” or who worked outside their homes and were as a result
seen as “mingling” with men.[89]

4. Legal and Policy
Reform

While Somalia’s Provisional Constitution, adopted in
August 2012, affirms the state’s commitment to human rights and basic
freedoms with provisions on gender equality, women’s rights, personal
liberties, freedom from torture, and the right to effective redress,
Somalia’s existing laws and policies are inadequate to protect women from
sexual and gender-based violence. In some important respects they even
contribute to the problem.

The Federal Government of Somalia should review existing
laws and policies to ensure that all forms of violence against women are
prohibited and clearly elucidated in law. Comprehensive criminal and civil
legislation is fundamental for an effective and coordinated response to
violence against women.

In the medium and long-term the government should:

Enact and enforce laws and regulations that
prohibit all forms of violence against women and encompass prevention,
protection, care, treatment and support, and remedies for survivors, as well as
adequate punishment of convicted perpetrators.

Review existing provisions, particularly in
the penal code and in the draft national gender policy, to eliminate gaps in
the protection of women against acts of gender-based violence.

Amend current penal code provisions that
classify sexual violence as an “offense against modesty and sexual
honor” rather than as a violation of bodily integrity;

Repeal article 443 of the penal code, which
contains less severe criminal sentencing provisions for perpetrators of
so-called honor crimes;

Revise the penal code and other legislation
to ensure that all forms of sexual violence can be appropriately prosecuted and
that the punishment is proportionate to the crime;

Amend the draft national gender policy to
give priority to the elimination of all forms of gender discrimination,
including all forms of violence against women; and

Ratify core human rights conventions,
including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Draft Gender Policy

Somalia’s government has also committed to enacting a
national policy to protect women from inequality.[90] The policy could set a
historic precedent if it is able to ensure the implementation of
Somalia’s Provisional Constitution and its provision prohibiting all
forms of violence against women. According to the draft policy, the government
is committed to “eliminat[ing] all forms of gender discrimination from
Somali society.”[91]
To achieve this objective, the policy needs to include concrete, effective
measures that specifically deal with the pervasive sexual and gender-based
violence in the country. The July 2013 draft reviewed by Human Rights Watch did
not address the issue.

In a letter to the Somali government (see annex), Human
Rights Watch recommended a number of revisions to the text of the gender policy
that would promote a more comprehensive and effective legislative response to
sexual and gender-based violence in Somalia. The proposed revisions included a
clear articulation that the prevention of violence against women and girls be
one of the government’s priorities, explicit recognition that violence
against women is a form of gender-based discrimination and a violation of
women’s and girls’ human rights, and specific provisions to address
violence in a comprehensive manner. Human Rights Watch further recommended that
the policy encompass not only the criminalization of all forms of violence
against women and girls, and the effective prosecution and punishment of
perpetrators, but also the prevention of violence, and the empowerment,
support, and protection of survivors. [92]

Penal Code

In order to meet Somalia’s obligations under
international law, Somali legislators should amend or abolish existing
legislation that subjects women to discrimination and abuse, including the
current Penal Code, which is particularly problematic with respect to violence
against women.

The 1962 Penal Code classifies sexual violence under the
headings of “Offense Against Modesty and Sexual Honor” and
“Crimes Against Morals and Decency,” rather than as an offense
against bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity. All forms of sexual
assault should be considered as crimes against the individual, rather than
crimes against norms or values. By focusing on a victim’s honor and
modesty, the Penal Code perpetuates the notion that a survivor of sexual
violence has lost her honor or is immodest, and may serve to undermine justice
by leading courts to focus on examining a woman’s sexual history rather
than the alleged violence committed against her by the accused.

Reflecting this problematic paradigm, the Penal Code
stipulates less severe criminal sentencing provisions for perpetrators of
so-called honor crimes than for perpetrators of the same crimes where honor
cannot be cited as a basis for mitigation. For example, article 443 of the
Penal Code mandates that the maximum penalty for a person who immediately kills
his spouse, daughter, or sister after witnessing her engaging in
“fornication” is imprisonment of 5 to 10 years.[93] By contrast, killings
done impulsively without premeditation incur sentences of 10 to 15 years under
the Penal Code.[94]
Article 443 also mandates that a person whose honor-motivated violence results
in “physical or mental” injuries to his spouse or female relative
is eligible for a one-third reduction in his prison sentence, whereas the same
violence could result in a full prison sentence if the attack was not deemed to
have been motivated by honor.[95]
Article 443 further reduces one’s prison sentence to 2 to 8 years if the
aggressor kills his spouse, daughter, or sister but without the requisite
intent to cause death.[96]
And if an assault results in no “physical or mental illness,”
article 443 completely exonerates a person who assaults his spouse or family
member for reasons of honor.[97]
Under article 439, the usual punishment for such an assault would be
imprisonment of up to six months or a fine.[98]

Article 443 violates the fundamental principle of
international human rights law that individuals are entitled to equality before
the law and should not suffer discrimination on the grounds of their sex.[99] The
penalty for murder or for battery should be consistent throughout the Penal
Code (though it should not include the death penalty, which Human Rights Watch
opposes in all circumstances[100]),
and the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator should not affect
this. As the CEDAW Committee has specifically addressed, governments have an
obligation to enact “legislation to remove the defense of honor in regard
to the assault or murder of a female family member.”[101] By upholding the
notion that “honor” is a legitimate rationale for assault and
murder, article 443 of the Penal Code effectively authorizes, and even invites,
violence against women by stating explicitly that a person who “merely
beats” or kills his wife, daughter, or sister caught in the act
fornication – as opposed to someone else – shall not be gravely
punished.

In addition, the wording of Penal Code article 398 on carnal
violence, which defines rape as “Whoever (a) with violence or threats (b)
has carnal intercourse (c) with a person of the other sex, shall be punished
with imprisonment from five to fifteen years” is imprecise. Elements of
the crime, such as “carnal intercourse” are not adequately defined,
since the definition of this act in subsection (4) merely provides that
“penetration by the male sexual organ shall constitute carnal intercourse.”[102] In
order to encompass all forms of sexual violence, the term “carnal
intercourse” should include all forms of penetration, including vaginal,
anal, and oral, and by penis, fingers, tongue or other instruments.

Defining a crime precisely can significantly impact whether
a violation is reported and how it is prosecuted. Penal Code article 399, which
criminalizes “acts of lust other than carnal intercourse,” suggests
a distinction between carnal intercourse, which warrants a more serious penalty,
and other sexual violations, which carry a lesser sentence.[103] This distinction
should be clarified. If article 399 is intended to capture other forms of
sexual assault distinct from penetrative acts, these acts need to be
comprehensively defined.[104]

Significantly, the critical requirement of
“consent” or “coercive circumstances” in cases of
sexual assault is absent in both articles 398 and 399, which is inconsistent
with the standard under international law. According to the CEDAW Committee,
“rape constitutes a violation of women’s right to personal security
and bodily integrity, and its essential element is lack of consent.”
The Committee further stated “that there should be no assumption in law
or in practice that a woman gives her consent because she has not physically
resisted the unwanted sexual conduct, regardless of whether the perpetrator
threatened to use or used physical violence.”[105]

Thus, the existence of force can be considered evidence of
lack of consent, but should not be treated as a necessary element of the crime
of sexual aggression. Alternatively, a focus on “coercive
circumstances” would replace a focus on the conduct of the victim and
whether she consented with a focus on the conduct of the offender. In amending
these articles legislators should focus on “coercive circumstances”
rather than “consent” as a central element of the definition.[106]

A Pervasive Pattern of
Violence Against Women

Long before the armed conflict, women in Somalia faced a
pervasive pattern of gender-based violence, which continues to the present.
Common forms of such violence include domestic violence, female genital
mutilation (FGM), and early and forced marriage. UNICEF indicates that
Somalia has one of the highest rates of FGM in the world, with more than 98
percent of girls between the ages of 7 to 12 experiencing some form of
cutting.[107]Moreover, many women and girls in Somalia experience the most extreme
form of genital mutilation, infibulation, which requires the partial or
complete removal of all external sexual organs and almost complete closure of
the vaginal opening.[108]

Rashida Manjoo, the UN special rapporteur on violence
against women, has called domestic violence against Somali women and girls
“the most pervasive manifestation of violence against women and girls
in the country,” in which “legal intervention or other assistance”
is not deemed necessary unless the violence leads to serious injury or death.[109] While almost
no reliable data exists on the prevalence of domestic violence, those surveys
that have been undertaken suggest that it is widespread.

5. Women’s Equality

Sexual and gender-based violence is fundamentally linked to
women’s inequality. Evidence suggests that in places where the
“gender gap” — in relation to women’s health,
participation in the economy, level of education, and representation in politics
— is greater, women are more likely to be subjected to violence.[110] In
2013, the UN Security Council affirmed that “women’s political,
social and economic empowerment and gender equality … are central to
long-term efforts to prevent sexual violence in armed conflict and post-conflict
situations.”[111]
Establishing gender equality over the long term is therefore crucial for
Somalia to effectively and sustainably reduce sexual and gender-based violence.
The Federal Government of Somalia should take wide-ranging steps to eradicate
the root causes of this gender inequality which has been exacerbated by years
of armed conflict and a culture of impunity.

Medium- and long-term measures:

Support programs that assist female
survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in rebuilding their lives, by
assisting them in seeking housing, jobs, vocational training, or school enrollment;

Support programs that promote the political,
social, and economic equality of women;

Ensure that women are able as a matter of
law and practice to equally and fully participate in the political process;

Promote women’s political
participation by building the capacity of female candidates through initiatives
such as campaign management or leadership training;

Support voter education programs that target
the education and information needs of women voters;

Support the education of girls by tackling
discriminatory attitudes regarding girls’ education through public
education campaigns;

Ensure any post-conflict economic recovery
strategies will promote gender equality and target women working in both the
formal and the informal employment sectors;

Raise public awareness to stop violence
against women and girls; and

Support civil society organizations that
protect and promote women’s rights, including those acting on behalf of
women’s rights defenders.

“The challenge for women
in Somalia is not just the violence. Sometimes we will go to the market, or
wash clothes or deliver things but then they just send us away and
don’t give us any money and we still have to feed the children,”
said Sahra, who was stabbed and raped in July 2013 while collecting firewood.
“Now the manual labor that I did before I was raped, I am not strong
enough to do it anymore. We need more programs that give us capital to start
an alternative business. After being raped, women are physically unable to do
this type of work anymore and don’t have capital to do something
different to put food on the table.”[112]

Women’s Political Participation

Women’s exclusion from peace processes, from
decision-making on peace-building and state-building priorities, and from
important state institutions perpetuates the marginalization of women in
post-conflict societies.[113]

Somalia’s Provisional Constitution explicitly
recognizes the importance of women’s political participation. Article 3
states: “Women must be included, in an effective way, in all national
institutions, in particular all elected and appointed positions across the
three branches of government and in national independent commissions.”

Despite its importance, Somali women’s participation
and role in politics and decision-making spheres remains limited, perpetuating
narrow gender roles and inequalities.[114]
Women have been virtually excluded from political and judicial structures in
different parts of the country since 1991, when the collapse of the central
government led to a re-emphasis on customary law, the extended use of Sharia
law, and a reliance on clan-based forms of political representation.[115]

In February 2012,
leaders from across Somalia agreed on a framework for a federal structure, as
well as electoral and parliamentary systems to replace the Transitional Federal
Government that had been in place since 2004. In the new framework women were
initially guaranteed 30 percent of parliament’s seats but ultimately
received about 14 percent when parliament was formed later in the year.[116]
The new cabinet included Somalia’s first female foreign minister, who
also became the country’s first female deputy prime minister.

On January 16, 2014, Somalia’s newly appointed Prime
Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed announced his cabinet of 25 ministers, which
included only two women for the ministries of women and human rights
development, and general activities and rebuilding.[117] Other senior
posts are also occupied by women.[118]

Education

Every girl has a right to education and to equal access to
education compared to boys. By getting an education, girls become more able to
realize their rights in other spheres. There is evidence that women with less
education are also generally more likely to experience violence than those with
higher levels of education.[119]

Somalia has one of the lowest enrollment ratios in primary
education in the world.[120]
While accurate and recent statistics on the education enrollment or attendance
rates of girls is unavailable, data that does exist suggest low school
enrollment and attendance for both boys and girls, with girls faring worse.[121]
According to UNICEF, the percentage of primary school participation for girls
between 2007 and 2010 was 23 percent, compared with 42 percent for boys, while
the net attendance ratio was 15 percent and 18 percent, respectively.[122] A
2012 report by the UN secretary-general estimated net primary school enrollment
for girls at 7 percent compared with 13 percent for boys.[123] The literacy rate for
women and girls in Somalia (aged 15-24) is only about 25 percent, with the
lowest literacy rate of 19 percent in the South Central region.[124]
This is compared with a 36 percent national literacy rate for men (and 31
percent overall).[125]

Persistent insecurity, economic collapse, and lack of
governance, especially in the southern regions, have greatly hampered the
development of the education sector in Somalia. Girls have seen their access to
education further eroded by a general lack of protection and by displacement,
exhaustion, family separation, and emotional trauma.[126] Encouragingly, the
Human Rights Roadmap approved by the Somalia government in August 2013
acknowledges the poor attendance rates of Somali girls and lists education as
one of the key priorities.[127]

Employment

In post-conflict countries, formal sector employment
generation initiatives tend to neglect women as governments focus on economic
opportunities for demobilized men.[128]
Yet, economic opportunities for women not only bolster their financial
security, but mitigate their risk of physical, sexual, domestic, and
psychological violence. Without equal economic and employment opportunities,
many women remain trapped in situations of violence, exploitation, and abuse.

For many Somali women,
the consequences of armed conflict – including the death of a spouse or
other family member, displacement, loss of property, destruction of one’s
home, or absent men – has meant there is no option but for them to assume
the role of family breadwinner. Yet limited economic opportunities,
particularly for female-headed households, compel women to seek and take work
wherever they can find it, including in situations that subject them to the
risk of sexual violence. Should women be attacked as a result, the consequences
can be wide-ranging and have enormous, long-term impacts on the women and their
children, particularly for those unable to work again because of an attack.

After Farxiyo was raped in her IDP camp, she was unable to
leave her home for two days.[129]
While the neighbors collected food to feed the six children living with her,
Farxiyo lamented the way rape caused poverty. “After we are raped, we
can’t do the same work or carry heavy loads, Farxiyo said. “We need
money for our kids to live. The government should do something or children will
die of hunger.”[130]
Samiira, a mother of five who was raped and injured by three men while working
on a farm, said the day of the attack was the worst day of her life: “I
quit my job. Now, sometimes we eat and sometimes we don’t.”[131]

Customary norms may further isolate and economically
marginalize women in Somalia. Often, widowed women do not receive their fair
share of an inheritance when land is grabbed by male relatives. Customary norms
in Somalia deprive widows of access to their husband’s land if they have
no children.[132]
Without access to land, widowed women may lose their only source of shelter,
food, and income, exacerbating the poverty they already find themselves in.

Commitments of the Federal Government of Somalia

The Provisional Constitution, adopted in August 2012,
explicitly prohibits “all forms of violence, including any form of
violence against women, torture, or inhumane treatment.”[133]

Since assuming power in late 2012, the Federal Government of
Somalia has pledged to address sexual violence, but it has not shown itself
able or willing to follow up with concrete action to address the problem. In
November 2012, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud publicly promised to hold
government forces accountable for abuses, including rape.[134]

After several months of international media attention on the
scale of sexual violence in Somalia, on May 7, 2013, the government and the UN
signed a joint communiqué that acknowledged that “very high
numbers of incidents of sexual violence have been reported consistently,
particularly in internally displaced camps and settlements in Mogadishu and
surrounding areas,” which the government promised to address “in a
comprehensive manner and as a matter of priority,” The government
promised to lead and undertake various measures, including:

Developing and implementing a comprehensive
strategy to prevent and respond to sexual violence, as well as supporting the
work of service providers;

Strengthening the protection of internally
displaced camps and establishing measures to protect women and girls in the
camps from sexual violence;

Implementing protocols to ensure the
protection of victims, witnesses, journalists and others who report on sexual
violence;

Strengthening the legal framework on sexual
violence through enactment, review, or harmonization of relevant legislation;

Supporting the Office of the Attorney
General to develop specialized investigation capacity for sexual violence
crimes; and

Issuing command orders through the army and
police prohibiting sexual violence and reinforcing the commitment for
“zero tolerance” of such violations in the army and police codes of
conduct.

In August 2013, a special session of the Cabinet of
Ministers formally endorsed a “human rights road map” for the
period 2013 to 2015 laying the foundation for improving the protection and
promotion of human rights in Somalia.[135]The
roadmap urged the government to address the widespread issue of discrimination
and inequality on the basis of sex and to consider:

Ratifying the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, as Somalia is one of the very few countries in the world that has
not ratified either convention;

Enshrining guarantees of non-discrimination
and equality in national legislation at the constitutional level;

Identifying and revising discriminatory
legislation and the penal code; and

Including gender analysis and mainstreaming
in all sectorial policies and legislation.

In late 2013 the Office of the Prime Minister presented a
draft document entitled “Preventing Sexual Violence,” requesting
timely and tangible assistance from the international community. It contained a
number of valuable recommendations to help victims of sexual violence,
including:[136]

Training and capacity-building of legal
staff on handling cases of alleged sexual assault and exploitation;

Setting up a flagship rape clinic, to be
expanded to more hospitals as soon as technically possible, which will include
advanced medical and psychological care, medical tests and forensics,
post-trauma care and counsel;

Developing and enforcing policies and
protocols for hospitals and medical practitioners on the documentation,
collection, and preservation of forensic evidence, and the appropriate
procurement and training of hospital and clinic staff to effectively use rape
kits;

In February 2013, prior to the first of a series of donor
pledging conferences on Somalia in London, Somalia’s Justice Sector
Action Plan (2013-2015) was developed by the Ministry of Justice and the
Judiciary with international support as part of an international effort to
support the rebuilding and resourcing of a functioning justice sector in the
country.[137]
Under the plan, the government acknowledges that the justice needs of women and
children are “often not well served by male-dominated justice
institutions.” [138]
The plan cites an urgent need to reform justice institutions and gives priority
to the implementation of women-centered justice policies.

In the same period, the Somali authorities, with support from the UN, the
European Union, and the United Kingdom, developed a strategic action plan for
policing that envisages the transformation of the Somali police force so that
it can meet the needs of vulnerable groups.[139]
In 2014, the government is planning to establish a Family Support Unit within
the Somali police force with an expertise in investigating criminal offenses
against women, particularly sexual and domestic violence.

Government officials have also stated the need to improve
the situation of the displaced population in Mogadishu. In January 2013, the
government announced plans to relocate the capital’s displaced population
to new camps in the Daynile district despite the fact that al-Shabaab retains a
significant presence in Daynile, prompting concerns that the new camps would
lack basic security and protection, as well as services. [140]

While the plans seemingly offered the authorities and
humanitarian agencies the opportunity to significantly improve the lot of this
highly vulnerable population, including their protection from sexual violence,
the lack of planning and consultation meant that the site was not set with the
necessary services and infrastructure to provide proper protection. The
relocation of IDPs from Mogadishu was postponed as a result. Meanwhile, forced relocation
of the displaced have continued, including from camps planned for relocation,
putting the already vulnerable at further risk.[141]

In spite of these public commitments and nascent plans to
address sexual violence, including by improving protection and tackling
impunity, the Somali government has yet to implement tangible measures to
improve the safety of women in camps.[142]
As a result of limited political will and lack of capacity, the government has
not held perpetrators of sexual violence accountable, particularly government
forces, as illustrated in three recent high-profile cases in which officials
arrested or harassed women who reported that they had been raped, rather than
properly investigating and prosecuting the alleged crime (see access to justice
section).

International Legal Obligations

International human rights law contains protections from
rape and other forms of sexual abuse through its prohibitions on torture and
other ill-treatment, slavery, forced prostitution, and discrimination based on
sex.[143]
It obligates governments to adopt effective measures for the prevention,
investigation, prosecution, and punishment of sexual violence; to ensure its
citizens the highest attainable standard of health; and to provide reparations
to victims of serious human rights violations.[144]

Somalia recognized that Somali girls and women have the
right to live their lives free of violence when, prior to the collapse of the
government of Siad Barre, it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR), and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Somalia is one of only seven countries that has not ratified
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.[145] However,
as part of the UN Universal Periodic Review, Somalia in September 2011,
accepted recommendations made by other countries pertaining to violence against
women, including ratifying CEDAW and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
[146]

Right to Freedom from Gender-Based Violence

Among their basic human rights, women and girls have the
right to bodily integrity, to security of person, and to freedom from torture
and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. These rights are enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICCPR, and the Convention against
Torture.

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and
Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), which
Somalia has signed but not ratified, commits governments to combating all forms
of discrimination against women, including violence against women, and to
adopting the appropriate legislative and institutional measures.[147]

Under the Maputo Protocol, governments are obligated to
adopt and implement appropriate measures to ensure the protection of women from
all forms of violence, particularly sexual and verbal violence.[148] They
are to take appropriate and effective measures to:

enact and enforce laws to prohibit all forms
of violence against women, including unwanted or forced sex, whether the
violence takes place in private or public;

adopt such other legislative,
administrative, social, and economic measures as may be necessary to ensure the
prevention, punishment, and eradication of all forms of violence against women;

identify the causes and consequences of
violence against women and take appropriate measures to prevent and eliminate
such violence;

actively promote peace education through
curricula and social communication in order to eradicate elements in
traditional and cultural beliefs, practices, and stereotypes which legitimize
and exacerbate the persistence and tolerance of violence against women;

punish the perpetrators of violence against
women and implement programs for the rehabilitation of women victims; [and]

establish mechanisms and accessible services
for effective information, rehabilitation and reparation for victims of
violence against women.[149]

The CEDAW Committee stated in General Recommendations 28 and
19 that violence against women constitutes a form of discrimination and states
have a due diligence obligation to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish
acts of gender-based violence. In its General Recommendation 19, the CEDAW
Committee stated, “States may also be responsible for private acts if
they fail to act with due diligence to prevent violations of rights or to
investigate and punish acts of violence.”[150]
A state’s consistent failure to do so when women are disproportionately
the victims, amounts to unequal and discriminatory treatment and constitutes a
violation of the state’s obligation to guarantee women equal protection
of the law.[151]

The CEDAW Committee has identified key steps necessary to
combat violence against women, among them: effective legal measures, including
penal sanctions, civil remedies, and compensatory provisions; preventive
measures, including public information and education programs to change
attitudes about the roles and status of men and women; and protective measures,
including shelters, counseling, rehabilitation, and support services.

Human Rights protections
against sexual violence also apply to persons under 18. The African Charter on
the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which Somalia signed in 1991 but has not
ratified, provides that governments “shall undertake to protect the child
from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.”[152]
Somalia has also signed, but not ratified, the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, which states that children must be protected from “all forms of
physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment,
maltreatment or exploitation – including sexual abuse – and ensure
that victims of such acts receive legal and psycho-social redress.”[153]
The ICCPR grants every child the right to "such measures of protection as
are required by his status as a minor."[154] Under the African Charter
on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, states must take preventive and
remedial measures against child abuse and torture, particularly sexual abuse.[155]

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
also upholds the rights of women and girls to live lives free from violence.
Article 16 places an obligation on states to “prevent the occurrence of
all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse.”[156]

Similarly, the UN General Assembly has urged governments to
take specific law enforcement measures to combat domestic violence through its
Resolution on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Measures to Eliminate
Violence against Women. The resolution, among other things, urges governments
to enforce laws on violence against women, develop gender-sensitive
investigation techniques, ensure that police procedures account for victim
safety and prevent further violence, and empower police to respond promptly to
violence against women.[157]

Violence against IDPs

IDPs have all the rights set out above. These rights are
reflected in the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which
“reflect and are consistent with international human rights law and
international humanitarian law.”[158]
The Guiding Principles provide that IDPs “shall enjoy, in full equality,
the same rights and freedoms under international and domestic law as do other
persons in their country. They shall not be discriminated against in the
enjoyment of any rights and freedoms on the ground that they are internally
displaced.”[159]
National authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to provide
protection and humanitarian assistance to IDPs within their jurisdiction.[160]

IDPs shall be protected, for example, against rape, torture,
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and other outrages upon
personal dignity, such as acts of gender-specific violence, forced
prostitution, and any form of indecent assault.[161] They shall have the
right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose their residence, in
particular the right to move freely in and out of camps or other settlements.[162]

Under the Maputo Protocol, governments are obligated to
protect IDPs against all forms of violence, rape, and other forms of sexual
exploitation, and that their perpetrators are brought to justice before a
competent criminal jurisdiction.[163]

Of emerging importance to IDPs in Africa is the African
Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced
Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention), which came into force on December 6,
2012. The Kampala Convention provides a comprehensive description of the rights
of internally displaced people and the obligations of states and non-state
actors. Somalia is a signatory but not yet a party to the convention.[164]

Right to Education

The right to education is enshrined in the ICESCR and the
CRC.[165]
The UN Committee on Economic, Cultural and Civil Rights, in its general comment
on the right to education, notes the need for education curricula at all levels
to be acceptable to the students, meaning relevant, culturally appropriate, and
of good quality.[166]
When considering the appropriate application of these essential features, the
best interests of the student shall be a primary consideration.[167]

Right to Health

Article 12 of the ICESCR provides for the right of everyone
to the enjoyment of “the highest attainable standard of physical and
mental health.”[168]
Governments should also ensure non-discriminatory access to health care,
especially for vulnerable or marginalized groups.[169] The right to health
includes an obligation to protect women and girls from violence. Violations of
the right to health include “the failure to regulate the activities of
individuals, groups or corporations so as to prevent them from violating the
right to health of others” and “the failure to protect women
against violence or to prosecute perpetrators.”[170] The UN special
rapporteur on the right to health has said that rape and other forms of sexual
violence represent a “serious [breach] of sexual and reproductive
freedoms, and are fundamentally and inherently inconsistent with the right to
health.”[171]

The right to health includes the right to access information
concerning health. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has
stated that “the realization of women’s right to health requires
the removal of all barriers interfering with access to health services,
education and information.”[172]The
particular needs of women in relation to access to health-related information
have also been highlighted by the CEDAW Committee and the UN special rapporteur
on the right to health, who has stated that a factor that makes women more
vulnerable to ill health is lack of information. [173] Many displaced women
and girls lack the information necessary to seek health services after rape or
other acts of violence and the government has not done enough to provide this
information.

A primary component of ensuring the right to health is
accountability, with the aim of correcting systemic failure to prevent future
harm. The UN special rapporteur on the right to health has elaborated upon the
meaning of accountability in the context of providing health care:

What it means is that there must be accessible, transparent
and effective mechanisms of accountability in relation to health and human
rights.… Accountability is also sometimes narrowly understood to mean
blame and punishment, whereas it is more accurately regarded as a process to
determine what is working (so it can be repeated) and what is not (so it can be
adjusted).[174]

Correction of systemic failures in the referral pathway
– such as lack of training and mistreatment by officials – cannot
be achieved without regular monitoring of the health system and the underlying
physical and socio-economic determinants of health that affect women’s
health and ability to exercise their rights.[175]
In a country like Somalia, this should include special attention to women
living in displacement, due to their vulnerable socio-economic conditions.
States should develop “appropriate indicators to monitor progress made,
and to highlight where policy adjustments may be needed.”[176]
Monitoring helps governments develop a better understanding of the
“problems and shortcomings encountered” in realizing rights,
providing them with the “framework within which more appropriate policies
can be devised.”[177]

Right to Privacy and Bodily Integrity

International human rights law guarantees both a right to
privacy and a right to bodily integrity that incorporate a right to sexual
autonomy.[178]
Sexual autonomy – the right to sexual self-determination – enshrines
both the right to engage in wanted sexuality and the right to be free and
protected from unwanted sexuality, from sexual abuse, and sexual violence. The
right to sexual autonomy alongside the right to sexual and reproductive health
has been the focus of a number of international declarations and conference
documents that address states’ obligations in this area.[179]

Right to a Remedy

By ratifying the ICCPR, the Convention against Torture, and
other human rights treaties, Somalia has assumed a positive obligation to
address violence against women. Whether the violence is perpetrated by
government authorities or by others, international law requires that Somali
authorities exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and
punish acts of violence against women.[180]

A victim also has the right to an effective remedy when
rights have been violated.[181]
The ICCPR provides that governments must ensure that any person whose rights
under the Covenant are violated “shall have an effective remedy,”
and that any person claiming a remedy “shall have his right thereto
determined by competent judicial, administrative or legislative authorities, or
by any other competent authority provided for by the legal system of the
State.”[182]

The Human Rights
Committee, which monitors implementation of the ICCPR, has stated that the duty
to provide an effective remedy to victims of human rights violations, whether
at the hands of public officials or private individuals, includes the
obligation to “exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate, or
redress the harm caused by such acts.”[183] The Committee emphasized
that governments must ensure “accessible and effective remedies”
for human rights violations and to take into account “the special
vulnerability of certain categories of person,” further noting that
“a failure by a State Party to investigate allegations of violations
could in and of itself give rise to a separate breach of the Covenant.”[184]

Women’s Political Participation

International standards recognize women’s political
participation as a human right, supported by provisions mandating equality
between men and women in all aspects of society. CEDAW specifically requires
that states take appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women
in the political and public life of their countries.[185]

There is broad international consensus about the need to
include women in post-conflict decision-making. UN Security Council Resolution
1325, unanimously adopted in 2000, stressed the importance of women’s
equal and full participation as active agents in peace and security in all
aspects of conflict prevention and resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.[186]
Resolution 1325 calls upon all governments to increase the number of women
involved in decision-making at the national, regional, and international level
on conflict prevention, management, and resolution. Implementation of this
obligation is measured by the level of women’s political participation in
parliament and in elections.[187]

While Resolution 1325 was the first time the Security
Council addressed the unique impact of armed conflict on women and the key role
women do and should play in conflict prevention, peacekeeping, conflict
resolution and securing peace, it has since adopted numerous supporting
resolutions.[188]
Taken together, the resolutions affirm that women’s exclusion poses a
profound constraint on effective peace-building, state-building, and long-term
development.

Acknowledgments

This report was researched and written by Samer Muscati,
emergencies researcher for the Women’s Rights division, and Tirana
Hassan, senior researcher for the Emergencies division, at Human Rights Watch.

Camille Pendley, associate for the Women’s Rights division,
and Laetitia Bader, researcher for the Africa division, provided extensive
research support.

Human Rights Watch gratefully acknowledges the financial
support of Donna and Gary Slaight, the Ford Foundation, and other supporters.

Human Rights Watch would like to express our deep
appreciation to all the women who came forward to speak with us for this
report.

Annex 1: Letter Re: Somalia National
Draft Gender Policy

August
21, 2013

Ms.
Maryan Qasim,

Minister
of Human Development and Public Services

Ministry
of Human Development and Public Services

Federal
Republic of Somalia

Mogadishu,
Somalia

Dear
Minister Qasim,
I am writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch, an international organization that
conducts research and advocacy on human rights in more than 80 countries
worldwide, to share our analysis of the Federal Republic of Somalia’s
draft National Gender Policy.

We
commend Somalia’s commitment to enacting a national policy to protect
women from inequality that is fuelled by longstanding social and cultural norms,
sanctioned by discriminatory laws and compounded by years of armed conflict and
a culture of impunity. The new government could set an historic precedent with
a gender policy that is able to ensure implementation of Somalia’s
provisional Constitution, which explicitly prohibits “all forms of violence,
including any form of violence against women.”

This
review is of the first draft of the gender policy completed in July 2013 by the
ministry’s Directorate of Women and Social Affairs with help from the
African Union Mission in Somalia. According to that draft policy, the
government is committed to “eliminat[ing] all forms of gender
discrimination from Somali society.” To achieve this objective, the
policy needs to include effective measures that specifically deal with the
pervasive sexual and gender-based violence in the country. Somalia’s
responsibility to combat sexual and gender-based violence is underlined by the
commitments it made in May 2013 as part of a Joint Communique signed with the
United Nations, which lays out various government commitments to prevent sexual
violence (described in greater detail below).

Background

Sexual
violence is pervasive in Somalia and a fact of everyday life for women and
girls. Decades of armed conflict, widespread violence and insecurity,
compounded by famine and massive displacement, have rendered women and girls
extremely vulnerable to sexual violence, particularly those who have been
internally displaced.

Alarming
numbers of incidents continue to be reported. On August 16, 2013, the United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that
during the first half of the year, there were about 800 cases of sexual and
gender-based violence reported in Mogadishu alone. According to the United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about one-third of victims of sexual
violence in Somalia are children. Last year, UNICEF and its partners assisted
2,200 victims of sexual violence in the country. The actual number is likely
much higher as many victims of sexual violence never report their experiences
to the authorities for fear of reprisals from perpetrators. Women and girls are
also wary of the ostracism and social stigma associated with rape and have
little confidence that the authorities will respond.

Human
Rights Watch research, published in March 2013, has found that armed men in
uniform, including government forces and government-allied militia, have been
responsible for a significant number of sexual assaults of internally displaced
women and girls since July 2011. These have included some security personnel who
were posted in displaced persons camps to provide security.

Somali
women and girls also continue to be at enormous risk for other forms of gender-based
violence, in particular:

UNICEF
has indicated that Somalia has one of the highest rates of female genital
mutilation (FGM) in the world, with more than 98 percent of girls between
the ages of 7 to 12 experiencing some form of mutilation. Moreover,
many women and girls in Somalia experience the most extreme form of
genital mutilation, infibulation, which requires partial or complete
removal of all external sexual organs and almost complete closure of the
vaginal opening.

The
Special Rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council on violence against
women has called domestic violence against Somali women and girls
“the most pervasive manifestation of violence against women and
girls in the country.” While it is difficult to get reliable data on
the prevalence of domestic violence, those surveys that have been
undertaken suggest that it is widespread, even in parts of the country not
severely afflicted by conflict, and they confirm the reluctance of women
to report it.

Government
response to sexual violence

Since
assuming power, the current government of Somalia has sent mixed signals about
addressing sexual violence. In November 2012, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud
publicly committed to hold to account members of the security forces
responsible for rape.

However,
the arrest and prosecution in January 2013 of a displaced woman and a journalist
to whom she had spoken about her alleged rape by government security forces
points to a greater willingness to protect the perpetrators of sexual violence
than to address the serious problem. The case—in which the two defendants
initially received one-year prison terms, which were later overturned—marred
the credibility of the government’s reform agenda. Somalia is also one of
the very few countries that has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) nor the Convention on the
Rights of the Child.

In
a positive development, on May 7, 2013, the government of Somalia and the UN
signed a joint communique that acknowledged that “very high numbers of
incidents of sexual violence have been reported consistently particularly in
internally displaced camps and settlements in Mogadishu and surrounding
areas,” which the government committed to addressing “in a
comprehensive manner and as a matter of priority.” The government
promised to lead and undertake various measures, including:

Developing
and implementing a comprehensive strategy to prevent and respond to sexual
violence, as well as supporting the work of service providers;

Strengthening
the protection of internally displaced camps and establishing measures to
protect women and girls in the camps from sexual violence;

Implementing
protocols to ensure the protection of victims, witnesses and journalists
and others who report on sexual violence;

Strengthening
the legal framework on sexual violence through enactment, review or
harmonization of relevant legislation;

Supporting
the Office of the Attorney General to develop specialized investigation
capacity for sexual violence crimes; and

Issuing
command orders through the army and police prohibiting sexual violence and
reinforcing the commitment for “zero tolerance” of such
violations in the army and police codes of conduct.

Analysis
of draft gender policy

The
proposed policy is a positive first step to addressing gender inequality in
Somalia. The policy will do much to safeguard women's rights and support their
access to education, health services, and participation in government. However,
a continuing insurgency and a lack of government resources and control will likely
pose significant challenges to the policy’s implementation.
Somalia’s international partners should commit resources to address the
deep-rooted gender inequalities the policy aims to undo. Donors should help
build the capacity of security forces to protect women’s rights,
including by vetting recruits to weed out perpetrators of sexual violence and
by recruiting more women, and of the justice system to handle sexual violence
cases competently and impartially. They should also consider support for
victims’ medical and psychosocial support services.

The
draft gender policy should clearly articulate that the prevention of violence
against women and girls is one of the government’s priorities and should
include

specific
provisions to address violence in a comprehensive manner. By doing so,
Somalia’s government would be acting to fulfill its international human
rights obligations to combat discrimination against women, its commitments
under its provisional constitution, as well as its commitments pursuant to the
Joint Communique with the UN.

Human
Rights Watch recommends that the gender policy adopt a comprehensive
legislative approach, encompassing not only the criminalization of all forms of
violence against women and girls, and the effective prosecution and punishment
of perpetrators, but also the prevention of violence, and the empowerment,
support, and protection of survivors. The policy should encourage the Somali
government to enact legislation that explicitly recognizes violence against
women as a form of gender-based discrimination and a violation of women’s
and girls’ human rights.

In
particular, Somalia’s gender policy should be revised to focus on four
thematic areas crucial for combatting violence against women:

Prevention:
Somali authorities and security forces need to take meaningful steps to
prevent violence against women and girls. This includes putting in place
protective measures, such as shelters and safe spaces, for women and girls
at risk of violence, ensuring that there are clear command and control
structures for security forces, vetting both military personnel and the
police to exclude perpetrators of human rights violations, including
sexual violence; training of law enforcement officers; and holding all
perpetrators accountable for abuses. Over the long term, the government
should undertake public information and education campaigns on violence
against women to change existing attitudes of men and women about their
roles and status.

Law
reform: Comprehensive criminal and civil legislation is fundamental for an
effective and coordinated response to violence against women. The
government should enact and enforce laws and regulations that prohibit all
forms of violence against women and encompass prevention, protection,
care, treatment and support and remedies for survivors, as well as
adequate punishment of convicted perpetrators. The government should
review existing legal provisions to eliminate gaps in the protection of
women against acts of gender-based violence.

Access
to services: Authorities should adopt measures to provide comprehensive
and integrated services, including emergency response, to survivors of
sexual and gender-based violence. In order to achieve this, the government
should seek to ensure that health and social services provide adequate physical,
psychological, social, economic and medical support to women and girls
recovering from violence. Health care and social service providers and law
enforcement officers should receive specialized training to provide care,
treatment, and support to adult and child survivors.

Access
to justice: Somalia should establish a judicial system capable of
delivering justice to victims of abuse in accordance with international
standards. Justice sector reform will need to effectively address and
respond to violence against women and take into consideration the barriers
that women and girls face in accessing justice, including stigma,
victimization, cost, complexity, and geographical inaccessibility.

Revisions
to the draft gender policy

Human
Rights Watch recommends a number of revisions to the text of the gender policy that
would promote a more comprehensive and effective legislative response to sexual
and gender-based violence in Somalia.

Article
2(3) of the current draft of the gender policy lists seven objectives, which
make no reference to violence against women. We recommend that article 2(3)(1)
be revised as follows: “Eliminate all forms of gender discrimination,
including all forms of violence against women, from Somali society.”

Similarly,
we recommend that article 4 be revised to include a fifth priority (in addition
to the existing priorities of women’s health, political participation,
education, and economic empowerment) targeting violence against women, which
could read as follows: “The priority interventions areas are arranged
into five thematic areas: economic empowerment, health, education, gender and
political participation, and violence against women.”

This
provision could be complemented by a new subsection, article 4(5), to elaborate
on this priority as follows:

Article
4(5) Gender-based violence

This
gender policy defines gender-based violence to include all violence that is
disproportionately directed against a woman because she is a woman or that
affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical,
mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other
deprivations of liberty, including sexual violence, domestic violence, female
genital mutilation and forced and early marriage.

Strategies
for implementation

The
following strategies shall be used to eliminate violence against women and
girls.

Reforming
and passing laws to end the impunity of violence against women by ensuring
perpetrators can be appropriately prosecuted;

Supporting
the development of health, social and other services that provide physical,
psychological, social, economic and medical support to women and girls
recovering from gender-based violence;

Raising
awareness of women’s human rights and gender equality, including the
right of women to be free from violence, and on existing gender-sensitive laws
and constitutional provisions on violence against women;

Facilitating
justice sector reform to effectively address and respond to violence against
women that will consider the barriers that women and girls face in accessing
justice, including stigma and victimization; and

Furthermore,
the chart in article 5 of the draft policy should be revised to include the
following section:

Violence
against Women

Institution

Roles
and Responsibility

Parliament

-Passing
and reforming laws to end the impunity for violence against women by ensuring
perpetrators can be appropriately prosecuted

-Monitoring
and evaluation of laws to assess how they are being applied, gender aggregated
data, data on who it is being applied against, etc. – so law can be
reviewed and amended if necessary

Ministry
of Justice

-Ensuring
perpetrators are appropriately prosecuted

-Facilitating
justice sector reform to effectively address and respond to violence against
women that will consider the barriers that women and girls face in accessing
justice, including the need for witness and victim protection

-Supporting
the development of health and social services to women and girls recovering
from gender-based violence

Directorate
of Health

-Supporting
the development of health and social services to women and girls recovering
from gender-based violence

Finally,
article 6(1) should be revised to include the following indicators that will
inform the monitoring and evaluation of this policy:

Number of individuals convicted on an annual basis for crimes of sexual and
gender-based violence.

Number of women and girls (by district/age/clan) using health and social
services to recover from gender-based violence.

Number of law enforcement officers trained to implement laws and gender policy.

Number of female law enforcement officers, lawyers, and judges hired per
district.

Thank
you for reviewing these concerns and we hope that the proposed policy will be revised
to take them into consideration. We welcome your response and look forward
to an opportunity to discuss our recommendations with you. Please feel free to
have your office contact our Somalia researcher, Laetitia Bader, at
Baderl@hrw.org or +254700241854 with any questions or to set up a
meeting.

Sincerely
yours,

Liesl
Gerntholtz

Executive
Director

Women’s
Rights Division

Human
Rights Watch

This
letter has also been sent to the Director of the Ministry of Women and Social
Affairs.

Annex 2: Letter to Somali Government
Requesting Information on their Response to Sexual Violence against Women in
Somalia

December
24, 2013

Awes
Hagi Yusuf

Chief
Advisor of the Policy Unit

Presidency
Office

Mogadishu

Federal
Republic of Somalia

Re:
Sexual violence against women in Somalia

Dear
Awes Hagi,

In
light of our meeting in Mogadishu in early December 2013 and to continue the
productive dialogue, I am writing to request a government response to inquiries
related to sexual violence against women in Somalia.

In
early 2014, Human Rights Watch will be releasing a report based on a
fact-finding mission to Mogadishu in August 2013. Before the report’s
release, we will also be sending you a separate letter with our key findings
and recommendations.

We
would like to ask you several questions that would assist us in preparing a
report that is accurate and fair. In order for us to take your answers
into account in our forthcoming report, we would appreciate a written response
by January 24, 2014.

Somalia’s Office of the Prime
Minister has developed a series of recommendations on preventing sexual
violence that were drafted by an independent committee. What is the
status of these recommendations? When will they be made public and when will
implementation begin?

In a letter to the
Somalia government in August 2013 (see attached), Human Rights Watch
recommended a number of revisions to the text of the draft gender policy that
would promote a more comprehensive and effective legislative response to sexual
and gender-based violence in Somalia. What is the status of the policy
and has the government accepted any of our recommendations?

The government of
Somalia and the United Nations signed a joint communiqué on May 7, 2013,
in which the government committed to address sexual violence and promised to
lead and undertake various measures to do so. Has the government started to
implement any of the measures, and if so, what specific steps has it taken?

Does the Ministry of
Justice or any other ministry collect comprehensive statistics on sexual
violence cases? In particular, can you provide information on how many cases
were reported to police so far in 2013? How many resulted in arrests? How
many resulted in convictions – both at the level of the ordinary courts
and the military court?

Government officials
told Human Rights Watch in December 2013 that the government plans to deploy
100 police officers to the planned relocation site for internally displaced
persons in Daynile. Can you please clarify at what stage the deployment process
is at, how the police officers will be chosen, what vetting will be carried out
and what training they will be receiving prior to deployment?

We
look forward to receiving information regarding the questions outlined above.
We would also appreciate learning about any recent actions the government has
taken to address the problem of sexual violence in the country. Please
email your response to my colleague Camille Pendley at pendlec@hrw.org or send
by fax to +1-212-736-1300.

Annex 3: Letter to the
Somali Government re: HRW findings

January
9, 2014

Awes
Hagi Yusuf

Chief
Advisor of the Policy Unit

Presidency
Office

Mogadishu

Federal
Republic of Somalia

Via
email:

Re:
Report on sexual violence in Somalia

Dear
Awes Hagi,

As
a follow up to our December 24, 2013 letter requesting government responses to
inquiries related to sexual violence against women in Mogadishu and the Benadir
region, I am writing to share with you some of the key findings and
recommendations of our forthcoming Human Rights Watch report on the same topic.

The
report is based on a fact-finding mission in August 2013 to Mogadishu where
Human Rights Watch interviewed 27 survivors of rape, all of whom had been
assaulted since the new Somali Federal Government came to power in late 2012.
Human Rights Watch interviewed others who witnessed abuses or provided services
to the survivors, as well as representatives from international aid agencies
and other relevant organizations working in Somalia.

In
addition to documenting rape of women and girls in Mogadishu, the report seeks
to provide a road map to assist the government, with the support of donor
countries and other entities, to put in place a comprehensive national policy
to prevent sexual violence, provide survivors with immediate and urgent
assistance, and develop a long-term approach to end these abuses. This report
presents five key areas – physical prevention, emergency health services,
access to justice, legal reform, and women’s equality – that we
believe the Somali government and international donors will need to address to
help stop the country’s epidemic of sexual violence.

We
would appreciate getting your response to our main recommendations, set out
below. In order for us to take your views into account in our forthcoming
report, we would appreciate a written response by January 24, 2014. We would
also welcome the opportunity to meet with you and other relevant government
officials prior to the release of the report to discuss these important matters
further.

Below
we share our main findings and recommendations, broken down by area.

1.
Physical prevention of sexual violence
Ongoing insecurity of internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Mogadishu and
its immediate surroundings poses among the gravest risks of sexual violence for
women and girls in Mogadishu. Many of the women interviewed by Human Rights
Watch live in precarious shelter. The research highlights how long distances to
collect fuel, reach services or work, and limited lighting in camps are key
factors contributing to risk of rape, particularly for female-headed
households. In addition, interviewees said that the lack of security in camps
is a significant problem.

Recommendations

Support
joint patrols of police officers and community representatives in IDP camps, especially
at night, to deter violence;

Ensure
that adequate resources are available to women and girls in IDP camps to reduce
the need for high-risk activities such as collecting firewood in remote areas
and access to safe water points; and

Ensure
that sufficient numbers of competent, trained police, including female
officers, are deployed to protect women and girls in IDP camps and in the
community at large.

2.
Access to emergency health services

Our
research highlights a range of factors hampering the ability of Mogadishu’s
health system to address the specific and urgent needs of survivors of sexual
and gender-based violence. These include the small number of existing
facilities, user fees for health services, lack of training among health
workers on these issues, and lack of counselling and trauma services.

Service
providers in Mogadishu as well as survivors of rape described stigma, cultural
taboos as well as practical barriers such as transport to and from services and
child care as factors impeding their access to existing services.

Recommendations

Ensure
that health and social services provide adequate physical, psychological,
social, economic, and medical support to women and girls recovering from sexual
violence; and

Develop
confidential referral systems and health posts in high-risk areas, such as large
or isolated IDP camps, which can facilitate referrals and access to emergency
treatment for women who are victims of sexual violence.

3.
Access to justice

Our
research documents how mistrust of police authority continues to discourage victims of sexual violence
from reporting crimes, particularly if they belong to IDP communities.

We
found that the January 2013 high-profile prosecution of a displaced woman who
said that government soldiers had raped her made some survivors more fearful
about reporting rape and that the number of reports temporarily decreased.

Victims
told Human Rights Watch that Somali police, rather than proactively investigate
criminal complaints, often demand that victims of any crime do the legwork in
the investigation, from locating witnesses to establishing who the suspects
are. This practice is especially problematic in cases of rape. Given the risks
for the women themselves to identify perpetrators, many say it is futile to
report abuse to the police.

Recommendations

Issue
clear and public orders to all members of the armed forces and police that rape
and other forms of sexual violence will be promptly investigated and
prosecuted;

Investigate
and appropriately prosecute alleged sexual violence committed by members of the
armed forces and police; promptly dismiss those found to be responsible from
the security forces;

Undertake
public information and education campaigns on reporting violence against women
to police, military courts and other authorities;

Train
all law enforcement, including police and prosecutors, to promptly and
thoroughly investigate cases of sexual and gender-based violence; and

Adopt
procedures to protect the confidentiality of persons reporting sexual assault
during the police investigation.

4.
Legal and policy reform
The report finds that Somalia’s existing laws and policies are inadequate
in protecting women from sexual and gender-based violence and in important
respects contributes to it.

Recommendations

Enact
and enforce laws and regulations that prohibit all forms of violence against
women and encompass prevention, protection, care, treatment and support and
remedies for survivors, as well as adequate punishment of convicted
perpetrators; and

Review
existing provisions, particularly in the Penal Code and in the draft national
gender policy, to eliminate gaps in the protection of women against acts of
gender-based violence.

5.
Women’s equality

In
order to meaningfully address violence against women as well as promote the
country’s viable development, the Somali government should address the
root causes of gender inequality and take broader steps to empower women
socially, economically, and politically.

Recommendations

Support
programs that promote the political, social, and economic equality of women;

Ensure
that women are able as a matter of law and practice to equally and fully
participate in any future transitional processes; and

Support
the education of girls by tackling discriminatory attitudes regarding
girls’ education through public education campaigns.

We
look forward to receiving your comments on these issues, any additional
comments you wish to provide, and information regarding the questions outlined
above. Please email your response to my colleague Camille Pendley at
pendlec@hrw.org or send by fax to +1-212-736-1300.

[14] In
January 2013, Nadifa, a 45-year-old widow with eight children, was raped in her
shelter in an IDP camp in Hodan. One evening, Nadifa saw a shadow at her
tent’s entrance. After asking who was there, a man entered and kicked her
hard in the ribs. She tried to get up but he slapped her across the cheek
causing her to feel dizzy, fall and pass out. The next morning, she regained
consciousness to the sound of her 12-year-old daughter’s screams, but was
still unable to move. While she did not remember the attack, she said that she
knew she had been raped because of pain in her genitals and some of her
clothing had been stripped. As with Shamso’s case, guards at
Nadifa’s camp return home at night leaving residents to fend for
themselves. She said that everyone in the camp is scared because of these
attacks. Human Rights Watch interview with Nadifa, 45, Mogadishu, August 25,
2013.

[16] Somali
women and children comprise about 70 to 80 percent of all refugees and internally
displaced people. United Nations Development Programme, “Somalia
Human Development Report 2012: Empowering youth for peace and
development” September 2012,
www.so.undp.org/shdr/Somalia%20Human%20Development%20Report%202012.pdf, p.23 (accessed
January 24, 2014).

[23] Human
Rights Watch recognizes that sexual violence requires a holistic and
multi-sector response, including livelihoods and social support. This section
focuses primarily on emergency health services and life-saving assistance,
which was identified as a priority area by the victims.

[30] While
internally displaced people throughout the world are particularly vulnerable,
the clan system in Somalia added an additional layer of vulnerability to those
most affected by the 2011 famine. A June 2012 IDP assessment in Mogadishu found
that 60 percent of internally displaced people originated from Bay, Bakool, and
the two Shabelle regions. While an accurate picture of the famine-affected
population is not available, it is believed that the majority of IDPs from
southern Somalia displaced as a result of the famine in mid-2011 were from the
Rahanweyn and Bantu communities. Both their social status, not seen as being
one of the noble clans, and their livelihood strategies, being primarily
agro-pastoralists and farmers, rendered them particularly vulnerable to famine
and later to abuses in Mogadishu. The more limited international reach of the
Rahanweyn and Bantu, including fewer links in the diaspora and neighboring
countries, is also believed to have undermined their social support mechanisms.
See Human Rights Watch, Hostages of the Gatekeepers, (New York: Human
Rights Watch, 2013), www.hrw.org/reports/2013/03/28/hostages-gatekeepers-0.

[39] In
January 2013, the Somali government announced plans to relocate tens of
thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Mogadishu by August
2013. It cited security and development of the capital as reasons for the
proposed relocation of IDPs to a site in Daynille, north of the city. The
government also saw this as a first step towards returning IDPs to their places
of origin – most of which are in areas of ongoing conflict and
insecurity. After failing to establish the appropriate security provisions in
Daynille, the government abandoned its plan to relocate IDPs living in
Mogadishu. Yet, evictions continued in 2013 despite the government’s
failure to provide an alternative location. Human Rights Watch interviews with
women forcibly evicted from IDP camps in Mogadishu in 2013 are consistent with
Amnesty International research that found scores of IDPs who had been forcibly
evicted from public and private land with no consultation, little notice and
often with the threat or use of force and the destruction of property. Amnesty
International, “Somalia: No Place for the Displaced” September
2013,
www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR52/010/2013/en/998458d1-c6d4-44dc-879d-24b4c6889d1c/afr520102013en.pdf
(accessed January 24, 2014).

[53] On
January 16, 2013, the military court executed a soldier who had been found
guilty of rape in 2011. Sabahi Online, “Somali Military Court
Executes 2 Soldiers Convicted of Murder, Rape,” January 16, 2013,
http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/newsbriefs/2013/01/16/newsbrief-02
(accessed January 24, 2014). Human
Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its inherent
cruelty.

[55]Attacks
claimed by al-Shabaab on the Mogadishu regional courthouse and on an aid
workers’ convoy on April 14, 2013, killed four legal professionals,
including a judge and three lawyers, and brought the court system in the
capital to a standstill for several months. Human Rights Watch, New
Al-Shabaab Attacks are War Crimes, April, 2013,
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/16/somalia-new-al-shabaab-attacks-are-war-crimes
(accessed January 24, 2014).

[62] Somali
culture is organized according to a clan system with membership in a diya group
based on kinship. Diya group members are linked together in alliances that
collectively pay or receive blood compensation for violence committed against
or by members of the group. Women are not members in the same way as men
– they do not count as paying members – and payments go directly to
men. UNDP Somalia, “Gender in Somalia,”
http://www.so.undp.org/docs/Gender_in_Somalia.pdf, p. 4.

[66] Human
Rights Watch documented several cases of rape in the second half of 2011,
mostly in Badbadho camp in Dharkenley district, a camp that was established by
the authorities in mid-2011 as a result of the influx of people into Mogadishu.
Incidents of rape were also documented in 2012 in other camps and settlements,
including Siliga camp in Wadajir district, Midnimo camp in Tarbuunka district,
and Milk Factory camp in Hodan district. Human Rights Watch, Hostages of the
Gatekeepers, (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2013),
www.hrw.org/reports/2013/03/28/hostages-gatekeepers-0.

[86] UN
General Assembly and Human Rights Council, Report of Special Rapporteur on violence
against women, its causes and consequences, Rashida Manjoo, A/HRC/20/16/Add.3,
May 14, 2012, para. 25.

[87] SIHA,
Women in the Horn Still Bending Their Heads: Immunity and Institutionalization
of Violence Against Women in Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea, 2012,
http://sihanet.org/index.php/statements/file/19-statement-to-the-51-session-of-the-african-commission-on-human-and-peoples-rights
(accessed January 24, 2014).

[88]
Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa Press Release,
“Somalia: Woman Beheaded – Peace in Somalia will remain superficial
until the human rights of women are protected,” August 23, 2012,
www.sihanet.org/index.php/news-and-events/83-somalia-woman-beheaded-peace-in-somalia-will-remain-superficial-until-the-human-rights-of-women-are-protected
(accessed January 24, 2014).

[91] This
review is of the first draft of the gender policy completed in July 2013 by the
ministry’s Directorate of Women and Social Affairs with help from the
African Union Mission in Somalia.

[92] For
example, article 2(3) of the July draft of the gender policy lists seven
objectives, which make no reference to violence against women. Human Rights
Watch’s letter suggested that the government revise article 2(3)(1) as
follows: “Eliminate all forms of gender discrimination, including all
forms of violence against women, from Somali society.” Similarly, Human
Rights Watch recommended that article 4 of the draft policy be revised to
include a fifth priority (in addition to the existing priorities of
women’s health, political participation, education and economic
empowerment) targeting violence against women, which could be complemented by a
new subsection to elaborate on this priority as follows:

Gender-based
violence

This
gender policy defines gender-based violence to include all violence that is
disproportionately directed against a woman because she is a woman or that
affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical,
mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other
deprivations of liberty, including sexual violence, domestic violence, female
genital mutilation and forced and early marriage.

[93]
Somalia Penal Code, Legislative Decree No. 5 of December 16, 1962, art. 443 states, that “Homicide and Hurt
for Reasons of Honor: 1. Whoever (a) finds his or her spouse, a daughter, or a
sister (b) committing fornication, (c) and in the sudden heat of rage for the
offense caused to his or her honor and to the honor of his or her family, (d)
causes the death of such spouse, daughter or sister, shall be punished with
imprisonment from five to ten years.

[100] Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all
countries and in all circumstances because the inherent dignity of the person
is inconsistent with the death penalty. This form of punishment is unique in
its cruelty and finality, and it is inevitably and universally plagued with
arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.

1.Whoever
(a) with violence or threats (b) has carnal intercourse (c) with a person of
the other sex, shall be punished with imprisonment from five to fifteen years.
2. The same punishment shall be imposed on anyone who has carnal intercourse
with a person of the other sex who (a) is incapable of giving consent or (b)
with a person who has been deceived by the offender personating as another
person. The same punishment shall be imposed also on (a) a public officer who,
(b) by abusing his power, (c) has carnal intercourse (d) with a person of the
other sex who is under arrest or detained in custody under the said officer by
reason of his office or entrusted to him in execution of an order of the
competent authority. 4. For purposed of penal law, penetration by the male
sexual organ shall constitute carnal intercourse.

Whoever
(a) by employing the means or under the conditions specified in the preceding
article, (b) commits upon a person of the other sex (c) acts of lust other than
carnal intercourse, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to five years.

genital organs or anus of one person, or in the case
of a female, her breasts, and any part of the body of another person or an
animal, or any object, including any object resembling the genital organs or
anus of a person or animal

mouth of one person and

the mouth of another person

any other part of the body of another person, or in
the case of a female, her breasts, which could

be used
in an act of sexual penetration;

cause
sexual arousal or stimulation;

be
sexually aroused or stimulated thereby; or

and any object resembling the genital organs or anus
of a person, and in the case of a female, her breasts, or an animal

the
masturbation of one person by another person

the
insertion of any object resembling the genital organs or a person or animal
into or beyond the mouth of another person, but which does not include an act
of sexual penetration.

[105] See, for example, CEDAW, Communication No. 18/2008,
CEDAW/C/46/D/18/2008, Sept. 1, 2010, at para. 8.7, stating, “[t]hrough
its consideration of States parties’ reports, the Committee has clarified
time and again that rape constitutes a violation of women’s right to
personal security and bodily integrity, and that its essential element was lack
of consent.” Ibid., para. 8.5.

[106] Namibian law provides a good example of a
coercion-based definition, which includes a non-exhaustive list of coercive
circumstances:

the
application of physical force to the complainant or a third party

threats
(verbal or otherwise) of the application of physical force to the complainant
or a third party

threats
(verbal or otherwise) to cause harm (other than bodily harm) to the complainant
or a third party under circumstances where it is not reasonable for the
complainant to disregard the threats

where the
complainant is under 14 years and the perpetrator is more than 3 years older
than the complainant

circumstances
where the complainant is unlawfully detained

circumstances
where the complainant is … and therefore unable to understand the nature
of the act or unable or deprived of the opportunity to express unwillingness:

physically or mentally disabled, whether permanent or
temporary;

intoxicated (drunk or under the influence of drugs)
and unable to consent

asleep

circumstances
where the presence of more than one person is used to intimate the complainant

[109] UN General Assembly and Human
Rights Council, Report of Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its
causes and consequences, Rashida Manjoo, A/HRC/20/16/Add.3, May 14, 2012, para.
17.

[110] Lakshmi Puri, Acting Head of UN Women, “It is
time for action to end violence against women,” ACP-EU Joint
Parliamentary Assembly, 19 June 2013, www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/6/it-is-time-for-action-to-end-violence-against-women-a-speech-by-lakshmi-puri#sthash.h1zjpcXk.dpuf
(accessed January 24, 2014).

[111] The resolution noted that sexual violence in
post-conflict situations disproportionately affects women and girls and that these
acts of violence not only “severely impede the critical contributions of
women to society, but also impede durable peace and security as well as
sustainable development.” UN Security Council Resolution 2106, S/RES/2106
(2013).

[115]Historically, Somali society has employed a governance
system under traditional customary laws known as xeer, which recognizes the
rights of men while limiting those of women. Although women have statutory
rights to own and acquire land, traditionally women tend to
register land in the names of their husbands or, if they are the head of the
household, in the names of their sons or brothers. UNDP, “Somalia Human
Development Report 2012: Empowering youth for peace and development”
September 2012, www.so.undp.org/shdr/Somalia%20Human%20Development%20Report%202012.pdf,
(accessed January 24, 2014).

[119]The relationship between educational attainment and
its protective effect is complex. Some men may react violently to women’s
empowerment through education, particularly if educated women then challenge
traditional gender roles. Thus, in some societies there is actually increased
risk of violence for some women until a sufficient number of them reach a high
enough educational level and gender norms shift to allow its protective effects
to operate. World Health Organization, ” Addressing violence against
women and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals” MDG 2,
http://www.who.int/gender/documents/women_MDGs_report/en/index4.html (accessed
January 24, 2014).

[123] UN Human Rights Council, Report of the
Secretary-General on UN support to end human rights abuses and combat impunity
in Somalia, 21 September 2012 A/HRC/21/36,
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session21/A.HRC.21.36_en_only.pdf.

[126] UN Human Rights Council, Report of the
Secretary-General on UN support to end human rights abuses and combat impunity
in Somalia, September 21, 2012 A/HRC/21/36,
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session21/A.HRC.21.36_en_only.pdf.

[127] UNDP in Somalia, “Status of MDGs in
Somalia” March 2012,
http://www.so.undp.org/index.php/Millennium-Development-Goals.html.

[128] Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women Committee, General Recommendation No. 30 on
women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations, 18 October
2013 CEDAW/C/GC/30,
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CEDAW/GComments/CEDAW.C.CG.30.pdf.

[133] The Provisional Constitution affirms the
state’s commitment to human rights and basic freedoms with provisions on
gender equality, women’s rights, personal liberties, freedom from
torture, and the right to effective redress. The constitution contains
provisions pertaining to a range of women’s issues beyond sexual violence.
Article 15 prohibits female genital mutilation (FGM), which it describes as
“a cruel and degrading customary practice, and is tantamount to
torture.” Article 3 covers women’s political participation and
provides that women be effectively included in all national institutions,
particularly in all elected and appointed positions across the three branches
of government and in national independent commissions. Significantly, article
39 calls for a law to provide for adequate procedures for redress, stating that,
“redress of violations of human rights must be available in courts that
the people can readily access.” If a victim is unable to go to court,
they may be represented by a person or organization to go on their behalf
“to protect the rights of others.” Under the Somali Compact agreed
to by Federal Government and donor countries, Somalia has prioritized
finalizing and adopting a Federal Constitution by December 2015. Somalia
Government, “The Somali Compact,” 2013, http://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/somali-compact
(accessed January 24, 2014);
Federal Republic of Somalia Provisional Constitution, art.24, August 1, 2012.

[134] The president’s speech of November, 2012, is
available online at
http://radiomuqdisho.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Riix-Halkan-si-Aad-U-Dhageysato-Khudabadii-Madaxweynuhu-uga-hadlayay-amniga.mp3.

[141]
Amnesty International, “Somalia: No Place for the Displaced”
September 2013,
www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR52/010/2013/en/998458d1-c6d4-44dc-879d-24b4c6889d1c/afr520102013en.pdf
(accessed January 24, 2014).

[142] See for example: UN Human Rights Council,
“Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations support to end
human rights abuses and combat impunity in Somalia,” A/ HRC/21/36, September
21, 2012, p.25.

[144] See Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 31
Nature of the General Legal Obligation on States Parties to the Covenant, U.N.
Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.13 (2004), para. 14 (“a failure to ensure
Covenant rights as required by article 2 [prohibiting discrimination] would
give rise to violations by States Parties of those rights, as a result of
States Parties' permitting or failing to take appropriate measures or to
exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused
by such acts by private persons or entities.”); International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), adopted December 16, 1966, G.A.
Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 49, U.N. Doc A/6316 (1966),
993 U.N.T.S. 3, entered into force January 3, 1976, ratified by Somalia in
1990, art. 12 (right to health).

[147] Protocol to the African Charter on Human and
Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol),
adopted by the 2nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union, Maputo,
CAB/LEG/66.6 (Sept. 13, 2000); reprinted in 1 Afr. Hum. Rts. L.J. 40, entered
into force Nov. 25, 2005, arts. 2 and 4. Somalia has not ratified the protocol.

[173] UN Commission on Human Rights, “The right of
everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and
mental health. Report of Special Rapporteur Paul Hunt submitted in accordance
with Commission resolution 2002/31,”E/CN.4/2003/58, February 13, 2003.
And, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General
Recommendation No. 24: Women and Health, 1999, U.N. Doc. A/54/38/Rev.3, para. 18.

[174] Special rapporteur on the right to health,
“Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the
enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health,
Paul Hunt,” January 17, 2007, A/HRC/4/28, para. 46.

[175] Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
“Report of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights on
preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights,” April
2010, A/HRC/14/39, para. 36.

[176] Special rapporteur on the right to health, “The
right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental health,” September 2006, A/61/338, para. 28(e).

[179] At the UN International Conference on Population and
Development held in October 1994 in Cairo, Egypt, and the UN Fourth World
Conference on Women held in September 1995 in Beijing, China, governments
explicitly endorsed women's sexual autonomy. In the 1994 Cairo Programme of
Action on Population and Development, delegates from governments around the
world pledged to eliminate all practices that discriminate against women and to
assist women to "establish and realize their rights, including those that
relate to reproductive and sexual health." In the 1995 Beijing Declaration
and Platform for Action, delegates from governments around the world recognized
that women's human rights include their right to have control over and decide
freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality free of coercion,
discrimination and violence. See UN, Programme of Action of the United Nations
International Conference on Population and Development (1994), A/CONF.171/13,
October 18, 1994, para. 4.4(c) and United Nations, Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action (1995), A/CONF.177/20, October 17, 1995, para. 223.

[185] CEDAW, art. 7. CEDAW General Recommendation 23
recognizes that the “political and public life of a country is a broad
concept. It refers to the exercise of political power, in particular the
exercise of legislative, judicial, executive and administrative powers.”
(CEDAW Committee, General Recommendation No. 23, Political and public life,
(Sixteenth session, 1997), Compilation of General Comments and General
Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, UN Doc. HRI\GEN\1\Rev.9 (Vol.
II) (2008),
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G08/422/43/PDF/G0842243.pdf?OpenElement
(accessed January 24, 2014), p.
347, para. 5.)